


Misdialed

by DLanaDHZ



Series: Misdialed [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-08
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-07 17:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 63,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DLanaDHZ/pseuds/DLanaDHZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John needs a new phone, one that doesn’t bend time and have an amazing man on the other end who claims to be the world’s greatest detective, except that he can’t figure out how he called Dr. Watson instead of his brother. However, with a criminal mastermind on the loose, John's phone connection may be the only thing that can save them both.</p><p>Aka, the one where Sherlock and John talk to each other on the phone, one year apart, and John is left to fall in love with the breadcrumbs Sherlock leaves him via everyone he knows.</p><p>One minor mention of non-con.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story was taken from one of my favorite movies, but the plot has definitely evolved and is not really like that movie much at all except for the time warping plot device and romance. ;) Enjoy.

The day was cold when it started. John remembered that. He had just moved to London, had just moved the last box into his new flat. The entire place was rather boring right now, with blank walls and empty rooms – well… empty except for all the boxes. John wasn’t a pack rat or anything, but he did have quite a bit of luggage when moving his entire living to a new place. Still, after arriving at eight in the morning and unloading the moving truck with just himself and the driver, he was rather tired by noon. And he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hungry, so he decided to take a walk to find the nearest restaurant for cheap. The movers were already out of sight by the time he got to the street, which he didn’t mind. He didn’t want to draw too much attention to the fact that he was new.

Lucky for him and his stomach, food wasn’t a far walk. At the corner of Melcombe and Baker Streets, there was a Subway and cozy looking Italian restaurant called Ask. John was never one to pass on cheap and good sandwiches, but he would prefer to keep his first meal in London centered on real food. Beyond that, the chilly air made him long for hot, tasty food, more than any toasted sub could provide. So Italian it was.

There was a red border between John and the outdoor tables and chairs for Ask, but he was rather sure he wanted to eat inside if at all possible anyway. He was just stepping toward the door when something made him stop.

“John?” someone called. John frowned and turned around to see who could possibly know him in an area like this. He’d hardly ever been in London before, much less this spot. “John Watson,” the man continued. “Long time no see.”

It was then that John laid eyes on a pudgy man in a pale trench coat, carrying a black umbrella in his hand in preparation of the cloudy sky. Recognition spread through John and he smiled, half in apology for not realizing sooner.

“Mike. Hey,” he greeted. “Yeah, long time. What brings you here?”

“Just about to head for the tube,” Mike said, motioning over his shoulder toward the station almost directly across the street. A man stood there, eyeing the people around him anxiously and fidgeting with his coat cuffs. Another man, in a dark jacket, was leaning against the railing beside him and looking like a tiny mob boss. “Was meeting with an acquaintance of mine who’s looking for a flatmate. What are you doing here in London?”

“Just moved in. I was about to get some lunch. Do you want to join me?” John asked, feeling his fingers going cold from the wind. His eyes glanced down the street to where a woman complained loudly as a man shoved her into another group of people while he spoke wildly on his mobile with no care for her. She shoved him back, and they proceeded to cause a scene. John frowned deeply.

“Sure, sure,” Mike agreed, oblivious, and motioned for John to lead. Noticing the crazed man heading their way to avoid the woman’s further yelling, John wasted no time in stepping into the restaurant. Better to avoid people with drama. “Bloody freezing out today, eh?”

“That’s November for you,” John muttered, rubbing his hands together and glancing out the window to the street. “I’m surprised it stayed warm as long as it did, to be honest.”

“True that,” Mike said. “Last year it was already snowing by now.”

“Last year I was living on a tree farm with my uncle and we had a freak rain shower,” John said, shrugging. He slipped his phone out of his pocket and frowned at it. No messages. “Weather can be unpredictable sometimes. Things can change before you even know it.”

Mike chuckled, but before he could actually say anything, there was the distinctive sound of pierced glass. Pain shot through John’s left shoulder before a dead thunk said something collided with the wall in front of him. In those few instants, John’s arm spasmed with the shock and his fingers released his mobile, sending it flying off somewhere into the room. A spark of light said it hit one of the hanging lamps, but John was already hitting the floor, so he didn’t much care.

“John! Oh my God!” Mike was shouting. People were screaming. One of the waitresses had already snapped her mobile to her ear with a call for an ambulance and the police. “Is there a doctor in here?” Mike called out.

“I’m a doctor,” John grunted, holding his shoulder and shaking on the floor.

“You’re not really in a condition to-,” Mike tried to argue, and then someone shouted for a doctor out in the street as well, where the traffic had stopped.

“I’m a doctor!” John called out determinedly so people outside might hear.

Before Mike could argue, John was wobbling to his feet and out into the cold day. The man in a dark coat and dress slacks was jogging away down the street, not looking back. The fidgeting young man in a short jacket and torn jeans stood just outside the station where he’d been before, hands holding a gun and shaking like crazy. His eyes were down on the ground where the man John had spotted earlier on his mobile was lying in the street. Officers from the station were already out and taking control of the shooter, but no paramedics were available for the man in the street or for John.

The other injured man was much worse off than John. Blood was pooling around him, and despite his work in the hospital, the sight made John’s gut quiver. His legs faltered, and John dropped down by the other man’s side. He was shot close to the heart, and seemed to have been clipped on the left side by a car that had been passing when he’d fallen into the street. The car had stopped just after the incident, and the driver was out and looking crestfallen.

“You alright?” John half hissed, trying to ignore the growing pain in his own shoulder as he tried to put pressure on the other’s wound. The man on the ground before him was growing paler by the second, and his eyes seemed to have already lost all focus. “Are you alright?!” John tried louder. The man tried to look at John, winced a smile, and closed his eyes. “No!”

“Someone call an ambulance!” John recognized Mike’s voice behind him.

“It was an accident!” The shooter was crying. “H-He told me to do it! I didn’t mean to!”

John shook his head and pressed down with his injured arm on the wound while his right hand tried to fake a heartbeat for the man on the ground. Blood flow. Keep the heart going. There had to be a pulse when the ambulance arrived. John was a doctor, damn it. He could be useful. Oxygen. John pulled both hands away, now bloody, and leaned over the pale man’s face. He tried CPR for a moment and then returned to his previous stance. What good was a doctor if he couldn’t even attempt to keep a victim alive?

“John, stop,” Mike was saying, but it sound off – like it was farther away than it needed to be. John shook his head. He wouldn’t stop, not until paramedics arrived.

Simulate the heartbeat. Pressure. He could do this. The pale man’s eyes fluttered half-heartedly. His bright eyes looked up at the doctor through tiny slits and shut again. John felt the sharp sting of being shot ring through his arm again, although nothing new had happened to him. He felt weak in the aftermath. No. He couldn’t stop now. His injury was nothing compared to this man. He wouldn’t stop now.

In the distance, the sound of sirens rang out between the buildings.

\-- -- --

John opened his eyes to stare at the blank ceiling. Somewhere to his right, a television was softly playing a rerun of Oprah. The audience was cheering, and Oprah was laughing. The woman watching it was hidden from view by a striped green curtain. John let out a sigh and slowly pushed himself up using only his right arm. His left was up in a sling, as though he would forget he shouldn’t move it. A cane hung from the railing of his bed.

“Ah. You’re awake,” Dr. Sarah said to announce her entrance. Her nametag read ‘Dr. Sarah,’ but she explained that it was her first name, not her last. She just didn’t like to sound old and she felt patients would respond easier to it, so she had the hospital let her be known by her first name.

“So it would seem,” John replied. He eyed the cane disdainfully. Sarah smiled knowingly.

“It’s only temporary. There’s nothing wrong with your leg physically. I suspect it’s the stress causing you to limp. Once you get back into a routine, it should fade away,” she assured. “The shoulder, however, will take the normal healing time. That one is completely real.”

“What about the other man?” John asked, switching the topic of conversation off himself. He set a serious gaze up at Sarah, one that meant he wanted no tricks. “No one’s been answering me since I’ve been here, but I don’t want any more games. What happened?”

Sarah’s smile dropped into a pitying frown. She glanced down at her clipboard and then back up at John. Her shoulders sagged with grief.

“I’m afraid he didn’t make it, Dr. Watson,” she said. “After you lost consciousness at the scene… The medics did their best, but… but he was D.O.A. I’m so sorry. I know you tried your best.”

John pressed his lips together and gripped his good fist into a ball. His eyes hardened and he set his heavy stare on the cane, the sign of his weakness. He gripped his fingers around the metal handle and closed his eyes.

“Some bloody good doctor I turned out to be,” he murmured.

Sarah shook her head. “Now now. You did the best you could in the situation. Chin up. You’re our new doctor, aren’t you? People are going to die around you…quite often, I’m afraid. But you have to find a way to relax and come to terms with it.”

“What do you suggest?” John asked, not honestly caring right now, but figuring it would be good to know for when he found the urge to try.

“I go to the park and read books,” Sarah answered, nodding shortly. “But our doctors try all sorts. Molly on the first floor writes a blog. She swears by it. Anderson is only part time, mostly works with the police, but he likes to go to a shooting range. It really depends on you and what you like to do.”

“Well thanks for the suggestions. Do excuse me. I’m going to absent myself for a bit,” John said, pushing himself to his feet and holding his cane so he wouldn’t fall over. Sarah nodded and stepped out of his way.

“You can check yourself out whenever you’re ready to leave. The director says you should take two weeks to recover at least before you come in to work, that way you’ll at least be through the worst of it. Then you’ll be on clinic duty until the shoulder heals completely and you can get back to operations and such. Look me up when you start work, yeah? I’ll help you find your wits,” she said with a smile and then stepped around his bed to visit the elderly woman in the bed beyond the curtain.

“Thanks, Sarah,” John said and hobbled to the desk. He grabbed his wallet and slid it into his back pocket, took his keys and put them in the front, then he carefully closed his fingers around his mobile.

Mike had come with him to the hospital after he passed out. After they’d diagnosed his injuries and patched him up, Mike had come in looking grim and set the phone down. He’d been wearing gloves the whole time. According to him, the phone had broken a lamp of some sort and shocked him when he’d first grabbed it, so he didn’t like holding it without gloves anymore. John had picked it up twice, almost calling his sister, but he’d never been shocked. The electricity had most likely emptied into Mike, the first to grab it, and was harmless now. John just hoped it still worked properly after being electrocuted.

He set the phone in his sling, resting against his arm. He couldn’t hold it in his left hand, but he’d never really enjoyed carrying things in jean pockets before, and his jacket had been taken away because it was covered in blood. He was borrowing another doctor’s extra shirt.

While Sarah continued to talk with the other woman in the room, John slipped out and started to walk around the floor as he’d done the day before. St. Bartholomew’s Hospital was a fine place for medicine, specializing in all sorts of fields, and was a quick ten or fifteen minute walk from John’s new flat, farther by car due to the direction of traffic on roads. He had not expected his first visit to the hospital after his move to London to be as a patient, but life is what it is.

After his first walk around the floor, John spotted Sarah at the nurse’s station, confirming some information with the two women behind the desk. John bit his cheek and wished they had met on better terms. He waited until she was gone and then headed over to check himself out. It was probably better to get his pain meds and get home before he made a bad impression on all of the hospital staff before he even started working.

Limping down the street felt much worse than walking around with the sling on his arm. He felt like everyone and their brother was throwing a glance in his direction, like high school all over again. But soon he’d be home and could safely wallow in his solitude until he could go to work. At least now he could unpack.

Against his arm, his mobile vibrated and startled him. At least this proved it still worked. He paused on a street corner and leaned gently against the wall so he could pull out the device. The number shown on his screen but wasn’t registered to any of his contacts, or perhaps the electric shock had erased his contacts. He hadn’t yet checked. The screen flickered.

“Hello,” he answered as he put the phone to his ear.

“…Hello?” a confused, deep voice replied. “Who is this?”

“Doctor John Watson. Who’s this?” John asked, looking around as though his caller was in view.

“How do you have my brother’s phone?” the other man asked, all seriousness.

“What? I don’t. This is my phone. I think you just dialed the wrong number.” John shrugged his shoulders and cleared his throat.

“Wrong number? That’s interesting,” the other man said and almost sounded like he was forgetting the conversation. Then he was back. “Thank you, Doctor. Sorry to bother you. I’ll let you keep walking now.”

“Hang on. Walking? Who is this?” John asked, scanning the street again. No one was paying particular attention to him anymore, and the only males on cell phones were two teens heading for the station. Neither of them could have this deep voice.

“I hear foot traffic in the background. Simple.” The man went silent again, and then there was the sound of a clearing throat. “The name is Sherlock Holmes. Good day, Doctor.”

And the call cut off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have already been informed of the technical issues of the British police/jail system in respect to this fic. Please forgive me. I did not have a Brit-Picker.

John yawned as he waited for the man behind the glass to appear. He didn’t know why he was here. Alright, that was a lie. He knew why he was here, sitting in this wretchedly uncomfortable chair and sitting in front of a plate of two inch thick bullet proof glass. Why he’d let himself get here, that was an entirely different story.

Perhaps he wanted answers. Perhaps he was a masochist. Perhaps he wanted to memorize the face of whoever he saw on the other side of the glass. All he knew was that the phone call this morning had been from an Detective Inspector Lestrade, and he’d been rather insistent that John accept the invitation he was about to receive. Maybe it was the softness of the serious sounding inspector or the purity of the request, but whatever it was, John was here now. Here was here and he was tired.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment, and then someone was tapping hesitantly on the glass. John’s eyes snapped open and he stared in shock at the man in orange across from him. Okay. Maybe ‘man’ was a bit much. The guy across from him was a boy, no older than seventeen. He looked tiny in the orange prisoner’s uniform and was watching John with his head slightly lowered in submissiveness. His eyes glanced toward the wall on John’s right. John sighed and reached for the phone there.

“Sorry ‘bout your shoulder,” the kid said as soon as the device was to John’s ear.

“Yeah. Not nearly as bad as the chest wound,” John answered, and he wasn’t sure if he meant the one that had been fatal or the one he experienced every day since.

The kid frowned and lowered his eyes. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I-I’m real sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“Doesn’t matter much now, does it?” John asked, interrupting. “A man’s dead now cause of you. It doesn’t matter what you meant to happen.”

“No you don’t understand,” the boy said quickly. “He wasn’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere in the area! I-I knew that guy. He was a nice guy… I never would’ve hurt him.”

“But you did. You shot him in the heart. Must not have liked him much.” John shifted slightly, his shoulder twinging in memory.

“He wasn’t supposed to be there. I was supposed to just shoot you,” the boy said, voice weighing with even heavier regret. John could only see the top of his head and the way the boy’s fingers gripped harshly at his hair.

“What?” John asked, voice gone. He’d been prepared to give the boy a speech about the wrongs he’d done. He’d been twisting with anger and pity and irritation. Now it was gone and he was left with stunned buzzing in his brain. “W-Why me?”

“Cause he told me to! I’ve been tryin to tell everyone, but no one’ll listen. He made me do it,” the boy gasped, voice hoarse.

“Hang on. Just calm down,” John said, shifting to get closer to the glass as though that mattered. “What’s your name again?”

“Ryan… but everyone calls me Raz,” the teen said, breathing slowly to stay calm. “If you… you know, if you believe me, I might die in here. He’s got eyes everywhere… and ears.”

“He? The guy you shot? I thought you said he was a nice guy,” John said. Raz looked truly razzled. He glanced over his shoulders a few times and then shook his head quickly.

“No. Not him. He was nice. I mean the other guy. The one who gave me the gun. He said I had to kill you. He said you were bad, a bad man. But I… at the last minute, I decided to shoot past you. Then that idiot jumped in the way. He startled me and I pulled the trigger. My fingers twitched and I let off two shots – one caught him and the other went past his shoulder and into yours. But I swear, I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t mean to kill you either. It’s all just so fucked up,” Raz whined, rubbing his face with his free hand.

“Why would he want to kill me? What did I do?” John asked.

Raz shook his head. “I-I can’t, man. I don’t know the details, and if I talk about him too much, he’ll get me. In jail. Out there. He’ll get me. I can’t even describe him, cause he could get linked, and that’s bad news for me.”

“Alright. Alright,” John said and nodded. “I believe you. Someone like him, he couldn’t be caught at a crime scene.” He remembered. Raz was the shooter, but that guy in the black slacks and fine jacket had been there too. He’d been watching Raz. And from the way Raz swallowed and stared back at him, John knew he was right. Someone like him… he couldn’t be caught at the scene. He’d run off. Raz knew John knew.

“Why did you call me here, Raz?” John asked quietly. Raz shrugged and shook his head.

“I guess I… I needed you to find out… to know how sorry I was. I wanted you to know I wasn’t a crazy killer,” he answered. He pressed his lips together and stared deep into John’s eyes. John nodded.

“I know,” John answered, voice heavy, and Raz relaxed immensely. He gave John a tiny smile and sighed.

“Thank you, Dr. Watson,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

Then Raz hung up the phone and the guards led him away. John slowly dropped the phone back on its holder and frowned. It was totally out of his area. He definitely wasn’t qualified for it. He stood up and made his way back out of the prison. It was crazy, what he was thinking. He should drop the idea before it could continue. But Raz believed he could do it, and somehow that seemed enough to start with.

Brrrr  
Brrrr  
Brrrrrrr

John stopped outside of the prison and looked down at his phone. The screen flickered and an unknown number glimmered on the screen. John had checked yesterday. All his numbers were intact. This one wasn’t known. But it looked very familiar, and so did that flickering.

“Hello?” he asked, pushing the phone to his ear as he moved down the street toward home.

“Ah. Hello again,” Sherlock Holmes’ voice came through, just as it had the day before. He sounded pleased instead of confused this time.

“Sherlock Holmes? Another misdial?” John asked, frowning. He wiggled his uninjured elbow slightly to hit his cane against his hip as he spoke and kept his eyes on the sky.

“Definitely not. I’ve found a puzzle to solve, and I thought you may be able to help me solve it,” Sherlock said. The background was entirely silent. John could hear nothing around Sherlock’s voice.

“You called a perfect stranger to help you solve a riddle?” John asked, stopping on the next street corner and looking around. Which way was home again?

“I’ve checked and double checked, Doctor Watson,” Sherlock began. “But I assure you, there is no way I misdialed your number yesterday. I was prepared to overlook the oddity, but your number was visible even after I called five people and concocted very well believed stories of why I was doing it. Somehow, my phone is malfunctioning, and I believe you will be the only one who can answer the riddle.”

John didn’t speak for a moment, deciding to go left because there was a major road that way and he could catch a taxi. Then he snorted.

“You called five random people in an attempt to get rid of my number?” he asked with a grin. “I wasn’t aware I was so unattractive – especially as just a phone number.” John stopped walking and leaned against the nearby wall. He hit his head against it twice before standing again. God, was he flirting with a guy on a phone? How pathetic was that?

“No,” Sherlock said then dropped off. John cursed himself mentally. He was making Sherlock uncomfortable, and he didn’t even know the guy yet. Yet?! What was this ‘yet’? Sherlock was a random guy on a phone malfunction. They weren’t about to have a lunch date or go out for drinks or anything.

“Um, about what I just said-,” John began, but was interrupted.

“Are you near a café?” Sherlock asked. John stopped walking and looked around the street. Indeed, he was standing right next to a shop selling drinks and sandwiches.

“Yes. How did you -,” John wondered aloud.

“Go buy a cup or a bottle or whatever. Since I’ve got you on the phone, we should…. chat. Or whatever it is people do on phones,” Sherlock half grumbled.

“What if I’m busy?” John asked.

“I highly doubt that. You wouldn’t have taken the call if you were really busy, and if you were about to be busy, you would have told me to piss off by now. Go buy a drink.” Around Sherlock’s voice, John could actually hear dishes being moved.

“Are you making coffee?” John asked.

“Yes. It’d be rude to ask you to get a drink while I just stared at the wall, now wouldn’t it?” Sherlock asked, and his tone made John almost feel stupid.

“Yep. Rude,” John said with a half sigh. He doubted Sherlock needed to stare at walls during conversations to be deemed ‘rude.’

“Indeed.”

John walked into the café and chose a small corner table for his solo café adventure. He didn’t want to be completely weird, having a drink with someone he didn’t know over the phone while sitting at the bar. He’d just keep to himself. He ordered a beer and took a seat. Balancing the phone with his shoulder so he could drink, he settled in.

“Coffee done?” he asked.

“Oh don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock replied.

“So what do you do for a living?” John started, taking a test sip of his bottle.

“Consulting detective,” Sherlock said. “Only one in the world. I invented the job. It means I assist the police whenever they’re out of their depth.”

“Which is always,” John mused. Sherlock dropped whatever he’d been about to say. “So you any good?”

“The best,” Sherlock answered, and John fought down the urge to think it was suggestive. “Want to know what I’ve figured out about you?”

“Yeah. Give it a go,” John agreed, taking another swig of his drink.

“You’re a doctor, but you haven’t been busy the two times I’ve called which means you must not have any work right now. Either you’ve recently been let go or you’re between jobs. You’re walking places but you’re not entirely sure what’s around you, so you’ve just moved in. You value privacy because you chose the seat in the café with the least amount of noise interference, and you’re drinking beer instead of coffee, so you’re not worried about your plans for the rest of the afternoon. Aka, you’re free all day.”

John stared at his beer and frowned. Sherlock got all of that from two brief calls? He must have killer hearing. Then a smile broke across John’s face.

“Wow. I can’t wait to hear what you find out from our next phone call,” he laughed.

“Next?” Sherlock asked, and it sounded like his coffee was finally finished. John stopped laughing and frowned again.

“You mean you don’t plan to call again?” John asked, spinning his bottle on the table.

“I do. I’m just surprised you’re giving me permission,” Sherlock said. “Although I do prefer to text. Would that bother you?”

“Go right ahead. Once my shoulder’s healed up, I’ll be busy with work, and texting is much easier to reply to,” John allowed.

Silence reigned while both men drank and thought of things to say. For a moment, John worried they’d already drained into an awkward silence and was glad other people would think he was just listening to someone else talk and wouldn’t know he was listening to silence. Then he heard Sherlock’s cup connect with a glass saucer.

“What happened to your shoulder?” Sherlock asked.

John glanced at his arm in the sling. “Oh, wrong end of a gunshot the other day. Wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose. My left arm’s all up in a sling right now. Mostly useless.”

“How are you drinking and holding the phone?”

“Talented shoulder balancing. Plus I let go of the bottle a lot to hold the phone,” John teased gently. He sighed. “Got a bit of a limp of the incident too.”

“Psychosomatic?” Sherlock asked and took a sip of coffee.

“Yeah. How did you know?” John asked. He could literally hear the detective smiling, or was it smirking?

“You didn’t use a cane to walk the entire time we were speaking before now,” Sherlock answered. “Didn’t you notice?”

John looked at his cane, hung over the side of the table, with awe. It was true. As soon as Sherlock had gotten him talking, he’d walked away fine. He’d dangled his cane over his arm the whole time without a second thought. He hadn’t limped or wobbled at all. It hadn’t hurt. John smiled and tapped his foot twice.

“Well aren’t you good for my health,” he mused aloud. “I’ll be damned.”

“Oh please. Let’s not go that far. I’m sure heaven will accept you even without the limp,” Sherlock said. John took a minute to understand what Sherlock had said, that Sherlock was joking, and then he was chuckling as he looked at his cane. He could hear Sherlock laughing too. It sounded pretty good.


	3. Chapter 3

“So what you’re saying is you never even heard it happen?”

“Now you don’t need to say it like that.”

“Two shots were fired and you didn’t hear either, Doctor.”

John sighed and closed his fridge with his foot before walking to his living room to drop onto his couch. He took a sip of his drink and then wedged it between his knees so he could hold the phone again.

“Listen here, Mr. Holmes. I grew up with a father who loved guns. He had me practicing as soon as I left primary school. Once I left university, I joined a shooting club. I'm a crack shot. I got used to the sound, alright? So sometimes I don’t notice when a gun goes off because my brain is equating it to a commonplace sound. Alright?”

“Alright. No need to get testy, Dr. Watson,” Sherlock replied, his voice surprisingly calm. Annoyingly so, actually.

“What about you then?” John asked. He set his water bottle on the carpet and relaxed into a lying position on his couch. “How does the world’s greatest detective end up dialing the wrong number on his phone?”

“Ah. That’s the tricky question, isn’t it?” Sherlock asked. “But, you see, I didn’t misdial. That’s the riddle. I dialed my brother through my recent call list. Somehow, the phone changed his number at the last second and dialed out to you instead.”

“Maybe you just have the wrong number plugged in for your brother,” John suggested. He followed the movement of his ceiling fan with his eyes until he started feeling dizzy. Then he shut them and squinted.

“Afraid not,” was Sherlock answer.

“Why? Because you don’t make mistakes?”

“Exactly,” Sherlock answered with enthusiasm. John could almost see him begin to pace as he explained. “Because I checked the phone after we hung up – well, I hung up. Your number was unlisted, had no name from my phone. I double checked Mycroft’s number – it’s all in order, sadly. Don’t you see? There was a great malfunction, Doctor! And strangely, the phone always seems to go fuzzy for a moment while it dials. It’s a fantastic mystery of a riddle.”

John chuckled. “A fantastic twist of fate,” he said. “It’s nice to hear you so excited about something.”

“What?” Sherlock asked, voice still oozing his excitement but tinted with confusion.

“You’re always so mellow and calm. This is our fifth phone call, and this is also the first time you’ve gotten all worked up over something. Usually it’s just you listening to me rant about people I pass by on the street or I hate on the telly,” John explained.

“I… apologize if I’m boring you,” Sherlock said, voice degrading back to normal.

“No no,” John said quickly, shaking his head a little. “It’s completely fine. It’s a relief to be able to talk to someone, and it’s nice to know there’s something that excites you.”

“Oh,” Sherlock brilliantly replied.

He went silent, thinking, contemplating, and John wondered what that might look like. John always imagined Sherlock to be a dark kind of person based on his tone and the deepness of his voice. He imagined him tall and strong. He wondered how close his ideas were. Sherlock was undoubtedly skinny just to go against John’s thoughts. John wondered if Sherlock showed off his body or covered it up with layers. He wondered if Sherlock’s hair was long or short, curly or straight. He wondered what color his eyes were. He wondered a lot of things, but the only way to get answers right now would be to ask, and it seemed too personal for a fifth phone call.

“How’s your shoulder, then?” Sherlock asked. John frowned and raised his left arm up partially, until it hurt to go higher.

“On the mend,” he said. “It’s only been about two weeks. I’ll be exiled from the operating room for at least another four.”

“Doctor Watson, eager to save lives,” Sherlock said, with just a hint of distaste. Then the tone was gone. “Don’t forget the rest of us when your schedule gets out of hand. I’m sure your girlfriend would be hurt alongside me – or even for me.”

John laughed out loud. “Girlfriend? Oh gracious. I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said.

“Really? A good doctor with no girlfriend?” Sherlock asked teasingly. John nodded with a serious expression.

“I have a wife. Two in fact. Don’t tell them though,” he said in a conspiring monotone.

“Oh!” and Sherlock sounded so stunned that John couldn’t help but break character early and begin to giggle – actually giggle.

“No way in hell,” John said as his ability to articulate returned. “I haven’t even been on a date in three years. I’m very unattached.”

“Clever. But that seems much more likely. If you were stringing two wives along, my opinion of you would have shifted dramatically, Doctor Watson,” Sherlock said. John sighed.

“Sherlock, please… Call me John,” he said. He’d wanted to say that from the second phone call, when he got the first hint that Sherlock would be calling him multiple times. However, he never got around to it, never felt like blurting it out in the middle of a conversation. Now he’d said it, though. He wanted to be called by his first name, not by the name he’d be hearing during most of his days as he returned to the life of a doctor. Sherlock was different, thought John couldn’t pick out if it was a good different or a bad different at this point. He just knew he wanted Sherlock to call him by his name. They were at least becoming friends by now, right? Right?

“Yes, of course,” Sherlock’s voice finally broke the thought process. “John.”

John smiled. He could get used to that sound.  
\-- -- -- --

Working in the clinic was not exactly the most exciting thing to happen to John Watson in his doctoring career. He still had a sling he wore when not in view of the patients and kept his arm as immobile as possible otherwise. Sarah came by between patients to check on his bandages and twice a day she checked how the wound was fairing. She checked him first thing in the morning before he got a patient, and she checked him just before he left, since she always worked later than him.

“So, here are your prescriptions. Try those out, and if you don’t see an improvement in a few weeks, come see me again,” John said, smiling at the elderly woman he’d just helped out. She nodded, her eyes turning into happy squints when she grinned and thanked him.

John shut the door to his room and whipped out his phone from his pocket. Technically he wasn’t supposed to use it at work, but since it was on silent, he didn’t think it mattered.

‘Want to play a game?’ he asked and pushed send. He barely had time to think about putting the phone away when it lit up with a response.

‘Sure. SH’

John smiled and pressed send just as a nurse knocked the door to check on him. He slid his phone in his pocket again and opened the door to return to work. He wasn’t sure why he was dodging the rules to play games with Sherlock, but he was. He was and it was exciting. He’d never been one to break the rules, but then he’d never had a good friend before either… or anyone he wanted to entertain like this. He hoped Sherlock liked the game as much as John enjoyed the idea of it.

Sending from his phone was this message: ‘Who am I? You can ask yes or no questions for more clues. I like books & school & boys with red hair.’

John handled his next patient with extreme care, for she took pills for intense panic attacks, and then sent her over to get an x-ray. He’d really rather be doing surgeries. Still, he was able to help quite a few people from here as well. It wasn’t all bad. He took a deep breath and pulled out his phone.

‘Hermione Granger. My turn? SH’ was on his screen.

Sherlock didn’t even consider that he’d gotten it wrong. He was certain he’d guessed correctly. He’d be right, but that intense confidence… John wished he had it. He answered with a yes and pocketed the phone. He had a lunch break after his next appointment, so he’d play then.  
\-- -- -- -- --

It snowed that year during the first week of December. John woke up to snow so thick he could barely see out the windows of his third floor flat. John had never honestly seen snow so thick. He’d barely experienced a snowfall of more than two inches in his entire life. He’d heard of bad storms, but he’d never been in one. This one was at least three times as bad as anything he’d experienced. As soon as he knocked the snow off the window by gently hitting the inside of it, it was replaced with more, so he eventually gave up and went to make himself some hot tea. He’d just set the kettle on when he heard his phone vibrating from the kitchen table.

John snatched it up with a smile and quickly pressed it to his ear.

“Hello?” he asked gleefully.

“Dr. Watson,” a distinctly female voice responded with relief.

“Oh Sarah,” John registered and cleared his throat. “What can I do you for?”

“There’s a snow storm, in case you haven’t tried to look outside. The news is calling it a freak storm and advising people to stay indoors,” Sarah said, and John could faintly hear noise in the background, like someone talking. She must be listening to the news right now.

John slowly rolled his injured shoulder to release an aching pressure and yawned quietly. “Are you at home?”

“Nah, I’m at the hospital. I had the night shift,” Sarah answered. She did seem to be trying to keep quiet, now that John thought on it. “I was calling to tell you not to try and come in. I know you live nearby, but I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if you tried to make it and got buried by the snow.”

“What about all the doctors on duty?” John asked, tending to the whistling kettle and pouring himself a boiling cup of water.

“They’ve all agreed to stay on until it blows over. Not that they really have a choice in the matter. Like the news said, it’s pretty much suicide to go out in this. Bad luck isn’t it?” Sarah asked.

John stirred his tea bag around in his cup absentmindedly. “Hm? What is?”

“The first snowfall of the year and it’s a blizzard,” Sarah said. “Usually I look forward to a light snow, but not this time.”

“Ah. Chin up. It’ll be beautiful tomorrow when this has all finished up. You can swim home and start a snowball fight,” John said. “But I suppose this means I won’t see you until… Thursday?”

“Yep.” Sarah was smiling. He could hear it. “Well I’ll let you get to whatever you were doing. Enjoy your day indoors. Rest your shoulder. I’ll see you Thursday.”

“See you then.”

John sipped his tea and frowned at the white blanket windows across the room. He was stuck inside all day, and his shoulder disapproved of the weather. What a glorious day off. He hoped he had enough food. He hadn’t been shopping recently. The good doctor took a deep breath and looked down at his phone.

‘You live in London, yea?’ he typed in.

Unlike usual, Sherlock did not instantly reply. Two whole minutes passed without a word, and John realized the sudden need to start a fire or he’d undoubtedly freeze to death. He grabbed some wood and tossed it in the hearth. He’d just gotten it to catch light when his phone went off for a message.

‘Yes. SH’ it said.

‘Freak weather we’re having, isn’t it? Does the snow have you packed in too?’

There was a bit of a delay, and then the phone vibrated again.

‘It’s raining and hailing where I am. SH,’ was the reply.

‘Where are you?’ John asked. Certainly nowhere in London. The city was a carpet of white.

A minute later he received ‘North Yorksire. SH’

‘It hailed there last year as well. Y are you in North York?’ John sent as he grabbed a spare blanket and wandered back to the couch.

‘I’m investigating. It’s what I do. SH’

‘Police case?’

‘Personal. SH’

‘Oh.’ John paused. He wondered what personal detective business Sherlock could be doing in North York. He wondered if Sherlock was anywhere near his old city. North Yorksire was pretty big. Sherlock could be anywhere in there. John bit his cheek and looked back at his tiny message. ‘Good luck,’ he added before sending.

‘Luck isn’t needed, but ty. Found what I was looking for. SH’

“Oh good,” John mused aloud. He couldn’t deny a somewhat sour feeling in his gut. “Personal business in another county. Unrelated to me at all. Wonderful. Yep….”

But even as he tried to push the thoughts away, he couldn’t help himself. He’d been talking to Sherlock for about a month, a good four weeks, but he still knew next to nothing about him personally. He didn’t know anyone or anything in Sherlock’s life. But, damn, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to.

“Damn,” he cursed, gripping his phone tightly.


	4. Chapter 4

‘How old are you?’

“John?” a voice asked, catching the doctor’s attention. John looked up from his phone to see a government officer staring down at him with those oddly sad puppy eyes the man seemed to consistently possess.

“Ah. Inspector Lestrade,” John greeted. He stood and offered his hand to shake. Lestrade frowned and shook.

“Yes. How can I help you? I didn’t accidentally call you in again, did I?” he asked, reverting back to the sad eyes. Part of John wished Lestrade would quit it, but the other part rationalized that the inspector probably had no control over it.

“Ah. No. I actually need help with something. Although it does involve the shooting,” John said, following Lestrade into his office.

“Alright. Shoot. No pun intended,” Lestrade sighed, sinking into his desk chair. John slipped into one across the desk and set his elbows on his knees.

“Yeah. Listen. Can I trust you, Inspector Lestrade? I mean like… you aren’t being paid off by anyone as an informant, right? Cause I’d really hate to accidentally get someone killed,” John said, clapping his hands together.

“What is it with you and people getting hurt? What? No. I’d never give information out to anyone. I’m not some rat trash. What is this all about, Dr. Watson?” Lestrade asked, leaning his arm on his desk and looking more annoying and angry than sad now.

“Raz is in prison, but he told me there’s someone on the outside that’s pulling all the strings. This guy sounds like Frank Costello from The Departed. Raz had to talk in code to even have the courage to tell me about him. He really thinks this other man is going to kill him if he even mentions that he was following someone’s orders. I sort of told him I believed him… so I’m here to check up on it,” John explained quickly so the detective wouldn’t be able to interrupt him.

For a moment, Lestrade stared disapprovingly, but then his sadness returned and he sighed. He looked tired, and John worried like a doctor for the first time since he’d met Lestrade. The older man didn’t seem to be sleeping well and his mood was just visibly deflated. John’s eyebrows knit together, but before he could speak, Lestrade was standing.

“Wait here. I think I know how to get you started,” he said. He rubbed his brow and then walked out of the office with his hand resting on his hip. John’s pocket vibrated as if timed for Lestrade’s exit.

’35. Too old? SH’ the message read. John smiled warmly at the screen.

‘Not at all. I’m 39. Too old?’ he asked. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lestrade returning, so he added a quick winking smile and sent the message.

Like clockwork, Lestrade opened his office door as soon as the message went through. He was carrying a large, overflowing casework box in his hands, and he set it down in front of John. He let out a relieved breath and dusted his hands before leaning on his desk.

“You can’t take this home with you, but you can work with it here as often as you want and as long as you like. I’ll tell the guy up front to let you back whenever you want,” the inspector said. “This is everything possibly related to your crime lord wannabe. Have fun.”

“Hang on. Are you saying ALL of this? And you already knew about this guy?” John asked, standing to get a better look inside the box. Files and photos were strewn inside along with several pages of handwritten notes.

Lestrade shook his head. “No. This box was compiled by a very good friend of mine. He said someone might need it, cause he certainly doesn’t, so he put everything he knew into one place. You should feel honored. You couldn’t ask for a better launching pad.”

“And you’re… not going to help me?” John asked, looking hopefully up at the officer. Lestrade sighed and stared over with his dog eyes.

“I can’t help all the time. I’ve got my own cases. However, if you do think you’re on to something, send me a text, and when I’m not on a case and you’re here I’ll try to help. Good enough?” he asked.

“No, that’s perfectly fine,” John said, shaking his head. “Thanks for all your help. Tell your friend thanks too for me.”

“Not likely,” Lestrade mumbled as he opened the office door again. He nodded his head out. “You can use any of the open tables near the back. Good luck, I guess.”

John picked up the box, which was a bit heavier than expected, and hobbled out to the nearest free table. Lestrade watched him all the way and only returned to his office when John started placing photos around the table. Part of John wondered if he was just imagining the tense atmosphere whenever Lestrade was around. Was it just John or did Lestrade not seem to like him very much? If the detective really didn’t like John, the doctor was at a loss as to why. John had never done anything to Lestrade.

Just then, John’s pocket vibrated.

‘Not at all. It could almost be called perfect. SH’

John let a smile tug at his lips but held most of it in. Lestrade may not like him, but Sherlock certainly seemed too. John would be lying if he said that thought didn’t thrill him.

‘My thoughts exactly.’ And he hit send.  
\-- -- -- --

“No. No, Harry, calm down. No, listen. Harriet!” John half yelled into his phone as he nudged a box into the center of his living room with his feet. “Honestly,” he sighed. “Look, it’s not a relationship. It’s just a couple of phone calls.”

John knelt in front of the box and began to dig out objects from within it. He pulled out two photos. They were pictures of the last two Christmas’s. One had taken place on his uncle’s property. That had been last year. Everyone in the province had shown up for it. John couldn’t remember who took the pictures, but there had been five in all so that everyone would be in at least one photo where they weren’t so tiny you couldn’t tell who was who. This was the one with John, Harriet, their parents, and Clara in it. John smiled and could almost remember his uncle snapping the photo. The other one had been at John’s parents’ house. The whole family had shown, which was an odd occurrence. It had been a much smaller event, but it had been fun.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Harry. He doesn’t even know I fancy men yet…Oh, heh. Yeah. I bet mum and dad never imagined having two gay children. I mean, what are the chances of that, right?” he joked as he set the photos on his mantel and returned to the box.

“No. I promise it’s nothing serious. Right now he’s just a voice on the phone. I’d never be stupid enough to consider a relationship with someone I know so little about….” John paused in picking up a photo album from within the box and let it drop back down so he could hold the phone properly. “Hey now. That’s not fair. Kissing someone and getting serious with someone are two totally different things… No they most definitely are. That was one time and I never saw him again. Can we just drop it?”

John shifted to hold the phone with his shoulder again and lifted the album out of the box. He shuffled over to place it on the bookshelf’s bottom level and groaned.

“Look, do I need to list off your companions?... No, I am not defensive. Harry. I’m not going to keep talking if you’re just going to tease me,” John said and pulled three tiny prints from the box. They were, of course, originally paintings, but these were just copies. They were three different views of random seasons, and none of them were larger than a diploma.

“Yeah, I’m still unpacking. No. I’m fine. Yeah, I’ll call you next week. Mmhmm. Say hello to Mum and Clara for me. Be good. Yep. Bye,” and John slid the phone off his ear and hung up. His eyes stayed on the pictures.

One was spring. One was summer. One was autumn. He’d never taken much time to notice he didn’t have one of winter. Perhaps he should get one. It was nearly Christmas. He could probably find one without much difficulty.

Suddenly, however, John was wondering if Sherlock would like anything for Christmas.  
\-- -- -- --

“Good afternoon, this is Doctor John Watson,” John greeted as he placed his phone against his ear. He held the corded phone with his shoulder while he scribbled down some notes about his last patient. His left arm hung comfortably in a sling since he was not in the view of any patients.

“John Watson?” a voice asked curiously. The tone was male and business formal. “I believe we have a friend in common.”

“Sorry? Who is this?” John asked. Nothing threatening had been said yet, but he still felt on edge. He set down his pen to hold the phone so he could look over at the shut door and then to the covered window.

“My name is not important right now, Dr. Watson. You hail from North Yorkshire, do you not? And you are currently involved with a peculiar detective, am I correct?” the man on the other end asked.

“No really. Who is this? And how do you know about Sherlock?” John asked. His mind flashed back to the box at the police station, to the countless pages of unsolved murders and crimes. Raz had warned that the man had eyes everywhere. Was this the guy?

“That’ll be all for now, Dr. Watson. We’ll meet in person soon. I just had to ensure I’d found the right Watson. Good day,” the man said and the line went cold. John pursed his lips and dropped the phone back on its mount. This did not sound like a good thing. He wasn’t sure he wanted to meet the mysterious voice on the phone. Although the same could not be said of Sherlock… so maybe John was just being too anxious? It was all those case files. He was making himself paranoid. Still, he couldn’t cover the fact that the call had been creepy and weird.

John pulled his mobile from his pocket and brought up Sherlock with practiced speed. He knew Sherlock was on a case right now, but this felt important enough to interrupt for.

‘I just got a call from a man who said he was a friend of yours,’ he sent.

“John,” Sarah’s voice sounded with a knock before she opened the door to the office. She smiled when she saw him. “You want to take lunch? Molly and I were thinking of Chinese takeout.”

“Sure, sure. Sounds great,” John agreed, slipping the phone back into his pocket. “Just let me finish this patient.”

“No problem. See you in the lobby in five?” Sarah asked. Her long fingers tapped the edge of the door. John smiled and gave her a nod, then she disappeared behind the door and it closed softly behind her.

John pocket vibrated. ‘I told my brother about you today, but he said he wouldn’t call. Wouldn’t surprise if he lied. SH’

John smiled and finished filling in the information for his last patient. Sherlock was telling his family about John? Maybe that shouldn’t feel so important, but it did. John couldn’t help wondering what type of conversation had brought him up. Sherlock seemed the type to just start such a conversation randomly, so it may have been an entire conversation about John, not just including him.

Finally finished, John slipped the chart into its holder and stood from his desk. He set his right hand against his left elbow and pursed his lips. He wouldn’t technically be in front of patients, and he was supposed to still wear this until Christmas, just to be safe. Christmas was next week, so it wouldn’t be on much longer. Even without the sling, John’s shoulder rarely stung anymore. Sarah was a great doctor and had made sure every step of the process was closely monitored and perfect. John only had one more checkup to go and he was in the clear.

Christmas was next week, but John still hadn’t asked Sherlock if he wanted anything. It always seemed so awkward. Sherlock didn’t sound like an open kind of person. There were layers, many of which were filled with sarcasm and crap. John hadn’t even scratched the surface, so he didn’t think Sherlock would tell him anything truthful about Christmas, and he worried Sherlock would think he was weird and too personal for bringing it up.

John frowned and dropped his hand. He was acting like a woman. He should just ask him, right? Sherlock was telling family members about John, just like John had told Harry about Sherlock. Surely they were friends enough to discuss Christmas.

‘What are your plans for Christmas?’ John asked. ‘Here in London or off with family?’

He held the phone in his left hand, despite the sling, and grabbed his wallet from his bag with his other. He didn’t need anything else for a simple lunch. He slid the wallet into his pocket just as Sherlock’s reply came through. Damn, he was fast.

‘Family – hardly. Was thinking about North Yorkshire. SH’ the screen said.

‘Oh? Following up on that last investigation?’ John sent and then opened the office door. He stepped out into the hall and smiled at a nurse who happened to be right there. She smiled in return and then they passed each other without problem.

‘Yes. Testing possibilities. SH,’ Sherlock answered. John forced himself not to frown petulantly. He wanted to know so bad! What personal business was Sherlock looking into in North York?

“John?” Sarah’s voice caught his attention. He smiled as he looked up so as not to seem distressed by a silly text message that he wouldn’t be able to properly explain away without completely outing himself.

“Sarah. Molly,” he greeted as he got to them. He slid his mobile into his pocket to ignore it for a bit and pat it through his jeans. “Shall we go then?”

“Yes, lets,” Molly said in that jittery way of hers. John did not envy her job working mostly with the morgue. She didn’t seem fluent in human interaction. It made her intentions mostly obvious and her mannerisms partially awkward.

John’s pocket vibrated a few times, but he pretended not to notice the messages. They could wait until he got done with lunch. He was at work, and that suddenly seemed to be a great excuse not to think on Sherlock and his adventures in Northern England.


	5. Chapter 5

“See you in two days!”

That had been the cheerful departure to which John had been privileged to on the day he left the hospital on Christmas Eve. Part of John had thought, had seriously considered, skipping his family Christmas party to stay at the police station and look through that case file box. There was just so much information in it. He had barely scratched the surface. Perhaps Sherlock was rubbing off on him in some ways. John was trying to do detective work. He wasn’t even particularly observant. How was he supposed to catch a secretive mob boss if not even the previous detective on the case, who had compiled so much information on the suspect, couldn’t?

John shook his head as he hopped on the train. There was no point thinking about it now. He was headed home for one day of celebration and then it was back to London for work. He could mull over such things when he returned. Right now it was Christmas, and there was a bigger issue at hand.

He hadn’t even asked Sherlock what he wanted for Christmas!

The old woman beside John jumped when he groaned pathetically and smashed his face into his hands. A light pain shot through his shoulder, but he took that as retribution. He was a terrible friend! He was a coward too, apparently. He’d been telling himself to ask Sherlock about Christmas all week, and what did he do? He danced around the subject and waited for Sherlock to ask him instead. Bloody good that did!

“I say, Dear, are you alright?” the old woman asked worriedly.

John groaned softer and rubbed his face down as he sat up straight. “Yes. Yes. Sorry about that.”

“You seem awfully troubled by something,” the woman continued. Her curly blonde hair was groomed into that general old lady style, where it just seemed to fluff around her head in a fuzzy halo sort of way.

“I was just thinking about how this new friend of mine talks to me all the time, and I feel really close to him, but I didn’t even have the nerve to get him a Christmas present,” John admitted. He’d always believed a stranger was a good person to tell things to. This old lady would probably never see him again, so what did it matter if she knew how dumb John was?

“I’m sure he’ll understand. My husband did when I forgot our first anniversary. I’m sure this friend of yours will too.” She pat John’s knee and smiled with her crooked teeth.

“You forgot your first anniversary?” John asked. Wasn’t that kind of an important date?

The old woman nodded. “Yes, I did. I was just so busy running my shop that it completely left my memory. I’m afraid I have a great memory now, but I wasn’t very observant in the past.”

John chuckled. “Sounds like me. I miss obvious things all the time,” he said. “I’m John Watson.” And he held his hand out to shake.

“Call me Ms. Hudson. Everybody else does. It’s the name of my shop too,” she said and winked as she shook his hand.

“In London? I’ll be sure to look it up after the holidays,” John assured. “You off to meet family as well?”

“Sort of,” Ms. Hudson said, frowning suddenly. She placed her hands over her purse in her lap and let out a tiny sigh, something suiting an old woman. “I’m going to visit the grave of a very prestigious man I once knew. The world may be no less happy without him, but it is far less bright. He was my last remaining family… even though we weren’t really related.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” John said, and this time he pat her leg. She smiled warmly at the gesture.

“It’s all in the past now, Deary. I’ve moved on. But as I have no one else to spend the holidays with, I figured he was better than being alone on Christmas. And you? You’re going to see your family?” She opened her purse and began to move things around inside it.

“Yep. My mum, my dad, my sister, and my sister’s girlfriend,” John said. At the mention of a girlfriend, Ms. Hudson looked up jovially.

“Oh isn’t that nice? I bet they’re the stuff of all sorts of gossip,” she said. John chuckled again.

“Oh yes, and they tend to enjoy it more often than not. Also, if we’re lucky, my uncle will come too. See, his wife died in May and I haven’t seen much of him since. Mum invited him, but only time will tell if he shows,” John explained.

“Oh time,” Ms. Hudson snorted. “Yes. Only time will explain the mysteries in life. Only time explains life and death. Well I’ve known enough time, and I still don’t understand a lot of this life.”

“Really?” John asked, smiling. “You don’t look like you’ve seen more than… forty years.”

Ms. Hudson pushed gently on his shoulder and laughed. “Oh you do remind me of my husband – in the early years, before he went abroad and murdered some poor stripper.”

“Thanks?” John replied, and Ms. Hudson laughed more.  
\-- -- -- --

“John, come open your gifts!” Harry’s voice called from inside. John tugged the sleeves of his sweater down farther as he paced back and forth outside under the overhang. Ice clung to every surface of the patio. A sloppy thin snow coated the yard.

“Are you standing out in the cold?” Sherlock asked. John could hear him drinking something from a cup.

“It’s easier to have a private conversation outside. Otherwise they’d all listen in,” John explained, stamping his feet.

“You should have at least worn a jacket,” Sherlock scolded, but he sounded amused. “And your sister seems the type to be hovering by the glass door to hear everything you’re saying anyway.”

“Well yes, but how did you know…,” John turned slowly and looked inside through the glass. Harriett was there, plastered to the edge of the glass sliding door and staring out at him like a gossip demon. John gave a start and held his chest. “Jesus, Harriett! Trying to give me a bloody heart attack?”

“Uncle brought presents with him that I want to open, but you’re taking forever. Tell your stupid boyfriend you’ll call him back,” she said and stuck her tongue out childishly. John returned the gesture.

“Not my boyfriend,” he said in a loud whisper, hand over the phone so Sherlock wouldn’t hear. “Now get. I’ll be in in a minute.”

“Fine. Just don’t freeze to death,” Harry warned and turned from the door.

“That was your sister, wasn’t it?” Sherlock asked, sounding pleased. John sighed.

“Honestly, I don’t know how you do that. You knew how she would be acting, and you know my parents have a sliding glass door. How did you guess that one?” the doctor asked, scuffing a thick patch of ice and sending it into the tiny yard.

“I didn’t. I’ve seen the house. It was rather quaint, but this one I’m at right now is quite a bit larger. Your uncle’s place, I believe,” Sherlock explained. “Lovely apple cider too. Could use a bit more cinnamon, though.”

“What? What are you doing at my uncle’s?” John gasped.

“Where were you last year, John?” Sherlock asked, switching subjects.

“Exactly where you are, apparently. My uncle was hosting a really big party. Now why are you there?” John asked again.

“I wanted to give you a present,” Sherlock said, and John heard him take a large gulp of his drink. He frowned. Sherlock had come to North York with a present for John…

“Y-yeah, about that… um… I’ve been meaning to ask you what you wanted for Christmas, but I… Well I didn’t know if we were at that stage of a relationship to be giving gifts yet,” John said, forgetting his worry over Sherlock being only a few miles away.

“Oh don’t let something silly bother you,” Sherlock said. “You’re about to give me a great gift.”

“Excuse me?”

“Or rather, I suppose I’m about to give you a great gift,” Sherlock amended. He let out a heavy sigh, as though something bothersome was happening, and then cleared his throat.

“I’m still not following,” John said. “Sorry. But how are you going to give me a present if you’re at my uncle’s house?”

“What’s the full date, Dr. Watson?” Sherlock asked.

“25th December, 2009,” John answered suspiciously. “Sherlock stop changing subjects when I ask questions, please.”

“I’m not. I’m just hoping I’m about to make a good enough impression to make a memory that lasts to next year,” the detective said. John could hear him crack a smile when he spoke next. “I have to go now, but I’ll call you tomorrow. I have to kiss a rather attractive doctor right now, this 25th day of December – year 2008.”

John wasn’t sure what had stunned him more – Sherlock’s last remarks, the oddity of the entire conversation, or the sudden lack of sound caused by Sherlock hanging up.  
\-- -- -- --

It was after dinner that the memory became clearer for John. He’d been trying to make heads or tails of Sherlock’s comments on the phone, why he would say a different year, why he would tell John he was about to kiss someone… why he said any of that mumbo jumbo. And as he and Harriet were washing the dishes from dinner, it suddenly reminded him. He handed a soap covered plate to his sister and watched her wash it off before speaking.

“Hey, Harry, do you remember Uncle’s party last year?” he asked. He saw the rise and fall of her shoulders before he heard the sigh.

“Yeah? So?” she asked, setting the newly washed plate on the rack to dry. “Are we going to talk about that guy you kissed again? Didn’t you tell me on the phone a little while ago to stop holding that over you? And now you’re going to bring him up?”

“Well it’s just… well there might be a possibility it’s the same guy I’m talking to on the phone,” John said. Harry shut off the water and dried her hands while she looked at him. He could tell she didn’t believe him.

“I’m not gonna say it isn’t, but what makes you think that’s even fucking possible? Random cell phone caller turns out to be dark and mysterious one night stand from last Christmas? Sounds more like stalker to me,” she said.

“First of all, please don’t use that language. Second, it wasn’t a one night stand. It was just a kiss,” John defended, going red in the face.

“I may have been smashed, Johnny, but even I can’t forget the way you looked. You and him were hiding by the barn. You were on the wall, and he was down your throat, and it didn’t look to me like either of you were gonna stop if I hadn’t have caught you,” Harry reminded. “The next day, he was gone and no one from the party knew who he was. Brother, I love you, but that was a John Watson one night stand.”

“Fine. But do you remember what his name was?” John asked, certain his face was boiling. He had not forgotten the experience, but hearing Harry explain it was far too embarrassing.

“Nope. I never knew it. Only identifying thing he ever said that I heard was that he called you Dr. Watson like he knew you. Can we talk while we clean? Christmas is over, and I need a drink to handle the amount of stupid in the other room.” She already had a glass of wine beside her on the counter, but it was down to one good gulp.

John shrugged and grabbed the next dish on the pile to wash. He remembered too. The dark haired man with slim but strong arms, with enough strength to move John wherever he wanted – not that it had taken much to make John accept the movements. He’d been a little more than tipsy and definitely wanting of some physical contact before the guy had even approached him. Finding out your decade long crush was getting married had a way of doing that to you. But then there was him, moving in without an introduction.

He’d set his hand on John’s left shoulder, rubbed it soothingly, and then led John around the barn. It was by far the hottest ten minutes of John’s life, as sad as that may be. He also remembered, like his sister, the way the paler man had addressed him as ‘Doctor’, had spoken like they knew each other, and the more he thought on it, the more he noticed how often the stranger had caressed his shoulder and arm.

Was it possible that had been Sherlock? But… Sherlock had said he was about to kiss a doctor right before John went in for presents. That was only about two hours ago, but the snogging had taken place a year ago at a party. It was possible Sherlock was saying the date and mentioning things as though they were current just to make John remember. Although Sherlock had claimed to be standing in hail the other day, and it had definitely hailed last year and not this year. He’d checked.

John frowned as he handed his sister the last plate. Sherlock was right. The apple cider had been lacking a cinnamon kick… John paused as soon as he pulled the stopper out of the sink. Sherlock had been completely sober. That meant… That meant…

“God, if you get a hard on washing dishes, I’m never speaking to you again. That’s well bad, John,” Harry complained. She sounded slightly disgusted, but John understood. Harriett hated penises more than most things on the planet. John smiled and shook his head.

“No. I’m fine,” he assured her. “I just thought of something surprising.”

“Good. I’m gonna go find some more wine now… and maybe something stronger if Pop forgot to lock the cabinet again,” Harry said, turning from the sink and tossing her towel on the counter.

“You really shouldn’t drink so much, Harry,” John warned, but she just waved over her shoulder and kept walking. John sighed. Sometimes she was a sweetheart and sometimes John just didn’t know how to handle her.

Speaking of handling things, John had no idea where to go from here with Sherlock. Was it possible Sherlock was the guy he’d snogged last Christmas? And was it possible it had truly just happened for Sherlock? No wonder Sherlock had been so interested. This was a mystery built for the greatest minds in science fiction, and a good mystery seemed to excite Sherlock almost as much as John got by just thinking about last Christmas.

Speaking of which… John frowned again and quickly made his way into a bathroom until he could find a way to stop thinking about it.


	6. Chapter 6

John leaned his head down on the table and sighed. His phone was gripped in his hand, tapping steadily on the table in a dull drum back beat. He had a train to catch in two hours, but he refused to move from this spot until he received a phone call. Sherlock had sent a text saying he’d call before John had to leave for his train. So he had to call. He had to. Right?

When the phone vibrated, John literally jumped. He snapped the phone to his ear and felt the heat returning to his face.

“I was drunk,” he said as an answer.

“Well I’m curious about the story attached to that statement, but I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” a man that was definitely not Sherlock replied.

“Inspector Lestrade?” John asked, smacking his hand on his forehead. Oh that was even more embarrassing!

“Right. Look, I’ve got a message for you from a man up in a government office. Above my head, right? So I hear you’re out of town, but as soon as you get back to London, come on by the station. He says it’s about the case you’re trying to crack,” Lestrade said.

“Oh right. Sure. I’m due to be back in London by tonight. Should I come in tomorrow?” John asked. He’d have to call in at the hospital, but if the police wanted to see him, he really had to take time off or he wouldn’t be able to fit it into his schedule for a long while.

“Nah. Come by tonight. The station will be closing, no doubt, but this guy doesn’t run by the usual clocks. He’ll be here to meet you,” Lestrade said. He took a deep breath and sighed. “Now I don’t much know you, Dr. Watson, but I have to warn you. He’s a bit intense, so prepare yourself to meet him. I’m almost a hundred percent positive he means you no harm.”

“Excuse me?” John asked, knitting his brow in concern.

“Now I don’t mean he’s going to seriously injure you. I’ve never seen him hit anyone, honestly, but the subject is a bit touchy so I’m just giving you a heads up. Now I’ve got to go. I’m on a case. You let me know if you need anything after meeting him.” And Lestrade hung up before John could properly voice his doubts.

Some government worker who was very intense and might possibly slug John or hurt him in some way wanted to meet after hours outside of the police station? John bit his cheek. Part of him wondered if this was a trap that Lestrade didn’t know about. Maybe this was the crime leader he was piecing together coming to take him off the case.

John’s phone vibrated again, but this time it was a text.

‘Case came up. Call later. SH’

“Brilliant,” John sighed and pulled himself away from the table to grab his stuff and head for his train.

\-- -- -- --

It was sprinkling lightly, as it is want to do in England. John wished it was snow. It would be much more bearable if it was snowing lightly instead of dampening his clothes so the cold wind could freeze him. The taxi stopped in front of the police station and left John Watson standing there by the brick wall. The wind was worse here, bouncing along the wall and chilling him to the bone, but he waited in the open nonetheless. He had no idea who he was supposed to be meeting in the dark and cold, but it was apparently important.

‘Get in the car. M’

John narrowed his eyes at his mobile and pursed his lips in slight agitation. A car truly was sitting across the street though. John didn’t remember it getting there. Had it been there when he got out of the cab? He stepped across the street and up to the black government vehicle, but he did not get in. The back door opened and a woman sat inside in the middle seat, texting. Had it been her? Lestrade said it would be a man.

“Time is a precious commodity, Dr. Watson. I would greatly appreciate it if you gave that thought more concentration.” The voice was definitely male and a bit slimy. The woman hadn’t even twitched. That’s when John noticed the leg and men’s dress shoe visible by the woman’s leg. “Please get in the car.”

“What do you want?” John asked.

“To discuss Sherlock Holmes, a subject I’m sure you are familiar with,” the man replied. “Get in the car.”

John hesitated only a moment longer and then found himself sliding into the seat beside the texting woman. She gave him a brief glance and smile, but he could tell she still took no mind of him. He looked over at the male occupant as the car purred into motion.

He was a blunt and humorless looking man with a fat nose that had the tiniest dimple at the end of it. He looked almost as if he had never smiled in his life or not for quite some time. His hairline was beginning to recede over his wide forehead and his hard eyes were not facing John. The man had a cane balanced on the floorboard between his feet and his hands resting on it.

“You're the man who called me at work, aren't you? Who are you? And what do you know about Sherlock?” John asked. It was awkward looking at the man over the woman’s bent head.

“My name is Mycroft Holmes, and Sherlock is my dear brother, although I’m sure he’d have said I was his arch enemy,” the man said, voice as humorless as his face. “I assume you have begun relations with my brother by this point, am I right?”

“Relations? Yes. Well, I mean we talk sometimes,” John said, shifting his position in his seat to look easier at the man. “What is this about?”

“We are almost to our destination. I will speak plainly with you there,” Mycroft said. “Until then, sit back and enjoy the ride, Doctor Watson. If my information about you is correct, you are not going to enjoy this conversation.”

John knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of Mycroft anymore. The man was like a stone, emotionless and immoveable. He dropped back into his seat but did not relax. He felt his heart pounding with nerves remembering what Lestrade had said and just hearing Mycroft’s last sentence repeat over and over. John pulled out his phone and quickly began to start up a conversation with Sherlock even though he didn’t know if Sherlock was free to text. Mycroft glanced blankly over at him but paid him no other mind. And so the car ride went.

When they had arrived at their destination, an impressively sized brick home, Mycroft led the way up the stairs and into a study. He twirled his cane every so often, making John wonder if he truly needed it at all or if the limp was all in his mind, like John’s had been. Sherlock had fixed John’s, so why wouldn’t he have fixed his brother’s?

As soon as John entered the study, the door shut and locked behind him. He turned in shock and noticed the woman had not followed them inside. John was alone with Mycroft.

“What do you know about Sherlock?” Mycroft asked. When John looked at him, the stiff man was sitting in a 360 office chair and tapping his cane on the ground.

“He’s a 35 year old detective who lives in London,” John said.

“Nothing else? You’ve been conversing with him for over a month and that’s all you’ve got to show for it? Perhaps this conversation will be duller than I had imagined,” Mycroft mused sourly. John couldn’t stop the tightening of his forehead or the downturn of his lips.

“What’s it matter what I know about him? You want me to stop talking to him?” John asked.

“Do you want to stop talking to him?” Mycroft asked. “He seems very fond of you, I’m sure.”

“Is this about the kiss?” John asked and shifted his weight to his left foot. He didn’t like Mycroft, and he certainly didn’t want to talk to him about this, but John could think of no other reason why Mycroft would want to talk to him.

“Yes, actually, in a way,” Mycroft said and nodded. “But I’m afraid you misunderstand my intentions. I want you to speak with him even more than you do currently. I want to know what he’s doing and thinking. I want you to spy on him and update me at least every other day if not more often. Do I make myself clear?”

“No,” John said and shook his head. “I mean, you’re very clear, but I won’t do it. I don’t care who you are or what your relationship is to Sherlock. I’m not spying on anyone for you.”

“You’re very attached to someone you know so little about,” Mycroft drawled out. “Tell me about this kiss. When did it happen?”

“Last year,” John answered without thinking. It had been plaguing him since Sherlock’s phone call. Mycroft could tell. John could see it in the man’s smirk, which looked sinister even in the brightness of the room.

“Yes. My brother often spoke of you and of that kiss. Liked to rub it in my face as the perfect mystery, something he couldn’t explain,” Mycroft said and lowered his eyes to his cane hand. “He spoke of you quite a lot.”

“What do you mean?” John asked. Was it truly possible? Mycroft looked up at John with dead eyes.

“I am not a joking man, Doctor Watson, so you will take it with the utmost seriousness when I tell you that my brother has been conversing with you since last November, not this November as you believe to be true. Your phone companion is living in a world one year behind your own,” he said.

“That’s impossible,” John said and smiled, waiting for the joke even though he knew exactly how much of a joker Mycroft was.

“Is it?” the older man asked blandly, as though he had forgotten the impossibility a long time ago. “Sherlock spoke so often of you, I tend to forget you don’t know anything that will yet happen in your relationship with him. But you will, and you will tell me all of it.”

“Why?” John asked. “If you already know, then why do you need me to tell you things as they happen?”

“Because living them once will simply not do,” Mycroft said forcefully, stunning John with the anger hidden there. The man pushed himself to his feet and seemed taller than before. “You may not yet grasp the truth of the time stream mistake,” he said, “but it is imperative that I am made aware of my brother’s movements. It is of the utmost importance.”

“Why?” John asked again.

“Because my brother is dead,” Mycroft said. “And you are the only chance I have to either save him or say a proper farewell.”

The room echoed with only the rumble of the air conditioner for several moments. It blew over John and made him shiver. Mycroft looked too intense standing there, leaning heavily on his cane as though the conversation had made his leg hurt worse. It really was psychosomatic, wasn’t it?

“What?” John asked, unable to grasp the information. He felt short of breath, but his words came out clear enough.

“My brother died this year, and you knew him during the last year of his life. I now have a year to track him through you and figure out a way to save his life, if such a thing is possible. I can think of no other reason that this anomaly of your relationship has occurred than to give me a second chance.” Mycroft stretched out his leg and shifted to lean on the unharmed one.

“Sherlock is dead?” John asked. Mycroft sighed.

“You are not as bright as my brother made you out to be.” And John glared, but Mycroft ignored it and continued in a much more pleasant tone. “You will help me save my brother’s life. From the tales he told, you care enough about him to grant me that small courtesy.” He seemed tired and much more somber.

“Yes,” John said in agreement. How could he say no? “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Thank you, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said and relaxed back onto both feet. “One more thing. Don’t tell Sherlock about his death.”

“But why not?” John asked. “How can we stop him from dying without telling him he’s going to die?”

“Sherlock is a stubborn one, Doctor. He wouldn’t believe you to begin with, but I’m more afraid of what he may do if you manage to convince him. He also erratic. Telling him could cause it to happen prematurely, and I don’t want to shorten the time I had with him,” Mycroft explained.

“So you know when it happens?” John asked.

“Down to the minute,” Mycroft replied and smiled as though this were something to be proud of. “But don’t worry yourself over that. For now, just enjoy your time with him and keep me up to date on what he’s doing. I’ll let you know when we’re getting close.”

The door opened behind John, a signal for him to leave, but John didn’t even move. He pressed his teeth together and pursed his lips for a moment before deciding on what he wanted to say.

“Your limp start the day your brother died?” he asked. He couldn’t put ‘Sherlock’ and ‘died’ in the same thought yet. Mycroft raised his cane up to examine it and then set it back down.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” the businessman replied. He looked like a pissed bird the way his head twitched back in curiosity at John. It was uncomfortable being around him.

“I had a limp like that. Sherlock tricked me into losing it,” John said. He turned then and trudged out of the study, leaving Mycroft to stand and stare down at his stick.

Not tell Sherlock? John couldn’t believe that. As the car drove him home, he knew he wanted to tell Sherlock right away. Sherlock should be told. How were they supposed to alter history without telling the person involved? They couldn’t physically stop anything. Sherlock was just a voice on the phone!

The car stopped outside of John’s flat.

The air outside seemed colder and the air inside felt still. John went to his window when he got inside and threw open the nearest one. Cold air moved through the room, breaking the stagnation. His pocket vibrated multiple times. A phone call. He lifted it to his sight and saw Sherlock Holmes written on the ID.

“H-Hello?” he answered.

“Sorry about not calling sooner, John,” Sherlock began, voice brisk and busy sounding. “I’m on my way to the station right now because the inspector decided he needed a statement from me. How dull.”

“Inspector?” John asked and dropped back onto his couch. Sherlock’s voice was pleasant to his ear despite its bored tone. It made his stressed heart sigh.

“Lestrade,” Sherlock said, drawing out the name like he was speaking of a coworker that nobody liked but had to deal with and feign friendliness with.

“Lestrade,” John repeated.

There was silence and then Sherlock’s tone was slightly concerned. “Are you alright, John?”

“Y-Yeah,” John replied and wiped at his eyes. He hadn’t felt the tears coming. They just were. Lestrade. No wonder the man didn’t like to deal with John. He’d probably heard stories just like Mycroft. He probably thought of Sherlock every time John came to the station. John brought back the memory of Sherlock’s death for Lestrade. John could see all the pieces fitting together easily now. It was all true. Sherlock was in the past and dead in the present. It made so much sense… while still being so impossible.

“Has something happened?” Sherlock asked, all seriousness.

John shook his head and cleared his throat. “I just met someone. An enemy of yours.”

“Oh? Which one?”

“Your arch enemy, according to him.”

“Oh. I apologize for whatever he put you through. He’s not a man to be trifled with, and I can only imagine the experience you’ve just had. Last time he spoke to me, I threw a chair out the window in my disdain for the conversation. You don’t seem the type to throw chairs. You probably endured the whole thing, poor you.”

“No. It was fine. Everything’s… fine,” John said and nodded his head. He wiped at his eyes again and did his best not to cry. Sherlock would notice, and Mycroft was right. John just couldn’t bring himself to tell Sherlock the truth. He would just have to wait until Mycroft told him it was time. He just had to wait for more time.


	7. Chapter 7

John groaned and stared down at the photos in front of him. Three radically different crimes with different men arrested in each case, and yet they were all in this box of evidence as though something connected them. John was certain it all pointed to the man Raz was so terrified of, but he just wasn't as good as Sherlock. He didn't see the clues. What did street shots of crime scenes do for this investigation? It was just a crowd trying to see what was going on. And the rest of the crime scene photos didn't match either. The MO's were different. The victims were different. John was about to pull his hair out.

"Need fresh eyes?" Lestrade asked.

John looked up and smiled tiredly. "Sure."

Lestrade took a seat on the opposite side of the table from John and cleared his throat. He turned some of the pictures around and glanced over them. He didn't even ask what cases they were from. John watched Lestrade's face, the concentrated expression, and thought of Sherlock. Lestrade knew Sherlock.

"I'm sorry," John said. Lestrade looked up from the photos.

"About what?" he asked.

"I know you don't like me," John said and leaned his arms on the table top. "And I have a pretty good idea of why... so I just wanted to apologize."

Lestrade sighed and shut his eyes momentarily. "No no. It wasn't your fault. I tried to build it up that it was, but it wasn't. You've known Sherlock awhile. The two of you were close, yeah? So I'm sure it upset you as well."

John nodded. Lestrade didn't know about the time glitch. "Yeah. I'm still having trouble grasping the idea, to be honest." He'd only known for a week, but Lestrade didn't need to know that.

"Yeah. It's odd not seeing him taking over my office, but I guess I'm getting used to it. It must be harder for you, though. You're seeing him every time you come in here," Lestrade said and looked toward a far off desk.

"I do?" John asked, knitting his eyebrows together. Lestrade stared at him for a moment and then gasped.

"Oh right! The two of you never met in person, did you?" he asked and waved his hand dismissively. "Sorry. Yeah. This is Sherlock's box of clues your looking through. He worked a lot of the cases, so he's actually in a couple of the photos. He's a bit camera shy, but we got him a couple of times. Here."

Lestrade turned around one of the street shots and pointed to a man on the crime side of the blockade who wasn't wearing a uniform. He wore a long coat and a scarf and looked both bored and annoyed. John smiled. He looked the same as John remembered him from the party - as cloudy as that memory may be. Dark, curly hair, long face, and bright eyes. He was close enough to the camera to see them.

"And this one," Lestrade said and moved another photo over. This was an inside shot with Sherlock by the body on the left side of the picture. He was looking down intensely, concentrated entirely on the crime scene. John smiled.

"Handsome," he commented.

"Yeah, but his personality put a lot of people off. You knew him. I'm sure you know what I mean." Lestrade sat back a bit. "Anyway, last time I looked over these shots, Sherlock was with me. He said he was missing something in the streets. He knew it had to be something in the photos of the streets, but he hadn't told me what it was before he died. I'm sure he'd figured it out, but we were supposed to meet up that afternoon and he never made it."

"You think the guy he was trying to find got to him?" John asked. Lestrade gave him a blank but serious look. "Well if this man really is a criminal puppet master as Raz says, assuming Raz's man is the one behind all of these crimes here, then maybe Sherlock..."

"Yeah, Maybe," Lestrade said, interrupting to save them both from having to say it. "He always did take too many risks. Thought he knew better than anyone and didn't need anyone either. I always told him it would be the death of him, but..."

"Yeah," John said and nodded. "I work at a hospital. I know."

Lestrade stared at John for a second, clearly wanting to say something more to that, but then he shook his head and cleared his throat. "Right. Well, my pocket is vibrating, which means someone's trying to get in contact with me. Sorry I couldn't actually help. I'll just leave you to your investigation, right? Call me if you need any help, and I'll try my best."

"Will do. Thank you," John said and nodded some more. Lestrade sighed and stood from the table and evidence. He looked down at the pictures of Sherlock and then turned away. John watched him leave for only a moment before he too looked down at Sherlock.

His pocket vibrated and he pulled out his mobile. It was Sherlock, of course, always supernaturally punctual when it came to Lestrade's exits.

"Yeah, hello?" John answered and brought the street view photo closer.

"Morning, John. Sorry I've been so out of reach. Busy week. The Inspector's been hounding me about boring cases. My mind is going to rot at this rate. I need work," Sherlock complained.

"How'd you know I was in 2009?" John asked casually, looking over the picture of Sherlock by the body. He imagined Sherlock looked something like the serious man in this photograph right now.

"Context clues. You said you were in London. I looked you up and found you in North Yorkshire, working for your uncle to pay off a school debt. You had no shoulder wound and no limp, and your medical records showed no signs of you ever having them. You're descriptions of weather were never correct with the current weather in London. The fact that my phone glitches every time it calls you and your description of your phone's misadventure during the shooting cause me to believe that some supernatural force, though I usually don't believe in such things, connected our phones through time. I kept a close eye on you for a week and decided you weren't lying to me in our conversations, especially when I spoke with you and the you in North York didn't even pick up the phone. On Christmas I asked you the date to figure out just how far apart we were. I can't scientifically prove why any of this is happening, but it became easier to accept and deduce over time."

"Yeah? Well I'm doing a bit of detective work myself," John said and ran his hand over the image of Sherlock.

"You? What kind?" Sherlock asked, clearly puzzled.

"I found a photo of you, Mr. Detective," John said, being careful not to say anything about Sherlock's name while in the station. "From the Jasmine Sheffield case."

"Hm. If you weren't a year ahead of me, I'd be sure you were an idiot. I haven't done a case involving a Jasmine Sheffield yet," Sherlock said. "But I'll keep an eye out for her name in the future... and be wary of cameras as well."

"Aw, don't do that," John said. "It's the only photograph I have of you."

Sherlock was silent for a bit, in which John could hear the noise of passing traffic as through a window, distant. Then Sherlock seemed to forget the previous conversation. "Tell me about this case of yours. Maybe I can solve a case before it even happens."

John chuckled. He'd been looking forward to this conversation.

\-- -- -- -- --

"I'm not a cook."

That's what Sherlock had said a week ago when he'd asked John if he'd mind staying in one evening to chat over dinner. Will it be a terribly fancy evening? John had asked, and that had been Sherlock's reply. So now John was making himself a one person lasagna fresh from the freezer section. He liked to cook, but he was too tired lately to be bothered.

"What did you make?" he asked Sherlock once he was settled.

"Ms. Hudson made me a plate of spaghetti," Sherlock said.

Ms. Hudson.....

'Call me Ms. Hudson. Everybody else does. It’s the name of my shop too.'

That old woman from the train. She'd been going to visit a man who'd been like family who had died. John gripped his fork tightly and frowned. The world was a small and ironic place. He'd met her once by happenstance on a train and she knew Sherlock. Not just that, she'd most likely been talking about him as well.

"That was kind of her," he said. He sat the phone on the table on speaker. "Who's Ms. Hudson?"

"My housekeeper. Well, not really," Sherlock explained. "She's my landlady, but she keeps an awfully close eye on my experiments and overall tidiness. She keeps messing up my sock index with her meddling."

"Sock index?" John asked and began to eat. Sherlock made an affirmative noise.

"My kitchen may be a 'mess', as Ms. Hudson claims, but my personal room is pristine. To be fair, the kitchen wouldn't be a mess if I had the proper room for my experiments. If she wanted it to be cleaner, she'd call my brother and have him remodel the building." He shut up for a moment, so John assumed he was eating as well.

John was taken over by thoughts of Mycroft and their daily chats, if you could call them that. He didn't know why Mycroft wanted to know what his brother had to eat on Tuesday or how many severed toe experiments he had going on over the weekends, but he apparently did and so John gave him updates. It was an odd thought, the idea of Mycroft Holmes. The man seemed to distance himself from the idea of the loss of his brother. John had seen him a few days after the initial meeting, when John had failed to start sending updates. At that time, Mycroft had switched from a cane to using an umbrella. It must have been a gift from someone wealthy because it was super durable and could withstand Mycroft's weight with ease. It was a clever rouse to hide his limp in public.

Thinking of the limp made John remember his and now he remembered the accident that caused it and he remembered that somewhere, sometime recently, Sherlock had died. He hadn't even asked Mycroft how it had happened. He hoped it had been a quick death, nothing painful or prolonged.

John had seen patients die slowly with only morphine to numb the pain. He'd seen accident victims bleed out, entirely conscious and crying for relief. John looked down at his microwave meal and frowned deeply. He didn't want to think of Sherlock dying like that. He didn't want to think of it at all.

"You've been odd since Christmas. What happened?" Sherlock asked, and John had the vague idea that Sherlock had said something and he hadn't responded.

"Nothing," he lied and cut off more lasagna.

"Is it the kiss? I apologize if I've offended you," Sherlock said. "I do tend to exhibit... socially unacceptable behaviors."

"No. No. It's definitely not... I mean... I guess it has been weighing on my mind." John nodded. This could be a good cover story for his new anxiety.

"Sorry?"

"Not that I didn't enjoy it. I did. It just makes me wonder... about us, I mean. Why didn't you come around after that and what is our relationship now, you understand?"

"Hm. I figured as much. So that was our only interaction before the calls. I knew I probably wouldn't continue it. You don't seem the type to have a relationship with someone you didn't even know, and you didn't know me during our first conversation. Still, knowing for a fact that I won't speak to you in person for a least another year is a bit disheartening." Sherlock made a curious noise and fell silent.

John's mouth hung open for a moment before he found his voice for speech. Sad thoughts just wouldn't leave him be.

"A fact?"

"Well yes. I can't change the future and it would be irresponsible for you to change the past. Therefore, anything in the last year of your life is a destined fact. We won't meet again," Sherlock explained.

John pushed his lasagna around on his plate. "I... wouldn't say that. We haven't tried. There are one or two things I'd like to change."

"No, John. Changing the past isn't an option. You don't know what effect that could have on your present." and Sherlock sounded so serious that John didn't want to push the subject, even if it did leave a sour, empty feeling in his stomach and ruin his appetite. He pressed his lips together and shook his head.

"Fine. So what effect are you having right now, then? What are we, Sherlock? If we can't mess with time, then why are we talking to each other? What can come out of it?" he asked. What could possibly happen with Sherlock being dead already? Why was John still talking to Sherlock? Was it just because Mycroft told him to?

"One can always learn from the past, John," Sherlock said, voice soft as though he knew how stressed John felt. "And I can learn a lot from someone so far in the future. As for the effect, well, I plan for it to be a good one, if I can help it. Would you help me with that?"

John ran a hand over his face and held his fork tighter. Trying to be quiet, he took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. He should stop these calls right now. Nothing was going to change because of it.

"Yea, I suppose so," he said, contrary to his thoughts. "One can always learn from the past."

Sherlock chuckled softly and they lapsed into the silence of eating and thinking. John didn't want to think. He wanted to ignore Mycroft and pretend everything was normal.

"This lasagna really is terrible," he said. Again, Sherlock chuckled.

"You should get Ms. Hudson to cook for you next time. Problem solved."

"Obviously. So do you have anything to toast with?" John asked, standing to retrieve a bottle of wine from his kitchen.

"I have a box of cigarettes and a tacky bottle of wine from my brother," Sherlock answered, his voice dull with annoyance toward Mycroft.

"Well toss the cigarettes out the window and pour yourself a glass," John ordered. "We'll be toasting soon."

"It's only nine, John," Sherlock pointed out. John shrugged and poured the red liquid into his cup. The bottle barely made a thunk sound as it was set on the table afterward.

"I think we'll be toasting all night from the looks of it, and I'm the one in the future. I know certain things," John teased.

"Of course," Sherlock agreed, albeit with a roll of his eyes. "So to what shall we toast? To good fortune, good health, and world peace?"

John chuckled this time. "No no. Let's just toast to us."

Sherlock was silent on the other end for a moment, and John didn't interrupt it. He'd caught what his own vocal chords had pushed out of his throat. He had no issues with them either. He knew nothing would ever come of this relationship, and yet his chest constricted whenever he tried to remind himself of that. So, he decided, he would just ignore the imminent future whenever he spoke with Sherlock... assuming he could he manage that.

"To us, then," Sherlock said over the speaker.

"To us," John repeated.

"Happy New Year, John," Sherlock's deep voice said, clear but soft. John let one tear slip from between his lashes as he shoved the thought of death into a cage. This would be a good year. It would.

"May it be a good one," he said and tossed back his entire cup.


	8. Chapter 8

John was startled from sleep when his phone went off with a text. Sleep was a foreign idea. The curtains on his windows were drawn, but John could still make out the light trying to break through to wake him. He'd planned to sleep all day until his night shift, but this text just ruined it. Night shift. John didn't know how he'd pulled the short straw on that one. Long shifts, too, roughly twelve straight hours each. He slept during the day and spent his few free days at the police station with Sherlock's box of evidence.

Five hours into a planned seven to nine hour sleep, John groaned as his dreamless sleep was shattered. He rolled over to grab his phone from his side table but then remembered he'd sent a message to Sherlock before falling asleep. He rolled back over to find his phone on the bed where he'd just smashed it with his chest. Phones were sturdy, though, and it would take more than someone lying on it for a second to kill it.

The text was from Sherlock, obviously. John never got messages from anyone else, except sometimes from Mycroft. The older Holmes seemed to prefer calling people, though, so texts were generally just from Sherlock.

'Do you know what this weekend brings? SH' it read.

John rubbed his eyes to wake them up and checked the date. He blinked blearily as his fingers tried to find buttons to form a reply.

'The 14th,' he sent back. Before he could properly close his eyes again, the phone was ringing.

'February 14th to be exact. SH,' Sherlock sent back. John took a deep breath. He'd known what month. He knew what day it was. He'd been trying not to think on it. Valentine's Day didn't mean much when you weren't actually dating anyone, and even less when that person you weren't dating wasn't anywhere near you.

'Happy Valentine's Day,' John sent back even though there were still two days until the lover's day was officially upon them. He hoped the messages would leave him be long enough to sleep some more, but he should have known better.

'I'm flattered. SH.'

John didn't reply. He read it and then rolled over to put his face well into the pillow, his phone still held in his hand. He gripped it tight and kept his eyes firmly shut. Even if he wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day with Sherlock, he couldn't. Sherlock was dead in the present and there was no way to send a gift back in time. Anyway, he shouldn't be thinking about Sherlock and Valentine's Day anyway. It wasn't as if they were dating. They'd known each other for just shy of three months and only over the phone... except for that one kissing incident which now seemed to stand out brightly in John's mind. He wished he could remember everything with more clarity, like the sound of Sherlock's voice saying his name or how long they were making out. He really wished he could remember the feel of Sherlock's hands on him, but it was all clouded by alcohol and time.

Interrupting his thoughts again, John's phone sounded loudly despite being half covered.

'Where The Bard leaves his car, the martyred saint waits to give you a gift. SH'

"What?" John asked aloud, wondering if it was just his tired brain that refused to let him understand what had just been sent to him.

'Or he should be waiting. SH,' Sherlock sent almost immediately after. 'But if he's not, then expect a message at least. SH'

John was still trying to figure out what to say when the third one came in. 'You can never tell where people will be in a year, after all. SH.'

'Sherlock, what on Earth are you talking about?' John sent back before another message could come through.

'Prove you're clever. Follow the clues. If you get it right by the 14th, you'll have earned the prize. SH'

'This is called baiting,' John said.

'And this is the part where you bite. SH'

John couldn't help the chuckle and blush combination that finally got him out of bed. He was getting presentable for going out, and not until he pulled on his shoes did he realize he had no idea where he was going. John shook his head, kicked off his shoes, and went to his computer to decipher the message.

Had he always been this accommodating to games and flirtation? Well he'd never had this much fun with such things before. Rubbing his eyes one last time, John cleared his throat and began to search. He hoped this game didn't end too soon. He liked it.

\-- -- -- --

The Bard.

John had instantly noticed the capitalization in the middle of the riddle. A quick search on Google made this part obviously clear. The Bard - William Shakespeare. There were other things, game references and general dictionary definitions, but since a good deal of the results had come back with Shakespeare, John decided to go with that. Okay, what's next?

Where The Bard leaves his car. Well that was a bit odd. The first time John had tried to register to that part of the message, he'd read it as saying 'where The Bard parks his car', not 'leaves his car.' That got John thinking. Perhaps the riddle had something to do with a park.

The first step was to figure out where in London Shakespeare would matter. That was also easy enough to find. The Globe Theater was just over the river... sort of. John hadn't been the best English student, but he knew what the Globe Theater was.

"Where the Bard leaves his car....," John mumbled as he brought up information about parks near the Globe Theater. Looking up 'parks' got him hotels. It also got him some car parks, which John wrote down just in case, but he still liked his idea of a park better.

Trying to find entertainment near the theater just made John frustrated and he switched to Google Maps after about forty five fruitless minutes. There was a spot of green past the Millennium Bridge. Photos of the area proved that it was indeed a relaxing park area for people to enjoy. John wrote that down as well and decided to spend the remainder of his day before work trying to find the martyred saint.

Who's the martyred saint, you ask? John figured that one out first. It was Valentine's Day in two days. Saint Valentine, for who the holiday was named, was martyred for not renouncing his faith. Now John didn't honestly believe Sherlock had found some statue of St. Valentine to leave a gift at. As far as John was thinking, all that half of the message referred to was that there was a Valentine's Day gift at the end of this rainbow.

He couldn't help the pitter patter of his heart as the taxi drove him across town. He'd just been thinking Valentine's Day was useless with a person in the past, but it seemed Sherlock did not think it useless to celebrate the day with someone in the future. John felt honored, humbled; he felt flattered. Sherlock was honestly giving him a gift? For Valentine's Day?

"Thank you," John said and paid the cabbie. He hopped out and looked around him. He had to walk a little ways to get to the little Bankside Gallery park, which is what John had decided to call it since it was nestled between the two sections of the Bankside Gallery and he'd never been there and didn't know any other name for it. Couples were all over the place, probably celebrating Valentine's Day already because perhaps their schedules wouldn't match up on the right day. Graffiti decorated some of the surrounding buildings, large works of art that looked like people.

For a minute, John just stood on the edge of the grass, waiting for someone to show up with a gift. When nothing happened, he figured Sherlock must have hidden it somewhere in the area... but it was an open field with a few trees surrounded by a thin group of very skinny trees. Where was Sherlock supposed to hide it?

John walked to each tree in the open area, but there was no gift or message of any kind. He scanned the thin trees, not daring to think he could maneuver around them to check in between them all. Then he walked the edge of the park, looking for a hiding spot in one of the surrounding buildings. It would have to be a place where no one would disturb it for a year. John found nothing. He felt his chest deflate as he stood at the back of the small park and looked out toward the river. Sherlock wouldn't have buried it in the ground. For one, that was illegal. For two, he would have no way of guarantying John would be able to find it or that someone wouldn't be sitting on it.

It was a lost cause. John checked his watch. He had three hours until work. Letting out a heavy sigh, he went to hail a new taxi. He would try that car park tomorrow. If that didn't work out, it would be back to square one.

...So back to square one it was. Work had dragged on for ever, and John had been exhausted by the time it was over. However, he'd still gone straight from work to the student accommodation car park on Great Suffolk Street. His glee may have been dampened by his failure the day before, but John was certain this was the only place the gift could be besides the park. And yet after a half an hour of searching the area, John had found nothing. Square one.

His pocket vibrated. 'How far have you gotten with the riddle? SH'

John sighed. 'Nowhere. I thought I had it, but not anymore.'

His phone began to ring. John took a deep breath and put it to his ear.

"Sorry, Sherlock. I'm out of ideas," he said.

"Well don't empty the bin yet. What were you thinking?" Sherlock asked. He sounded a little groggy, as though he'd just woken up. John checked his watch. Ten a.m. Damn he wished he could sleep in that late.

"Well The Bard is obviously Shakespeare," John began.

"Obviously," Sherlock agreed. A high whistling sound alerted John to the creation of tea.

"And I thought the other half might reference a park, but I already went to the closest park to the Globe, and I didn't find anything. So now I'm at a car park, and I haven't found anything here either. So I must have read it wrong," John finished, putting his hand on his hip and breathing out fog.

"Nonsense. You may be average, John, but you're not as dim as people think," Sherlock said, and John didn't know if he should be insulted. There was pause on Sherlock's end. "Sorry. Seems to be someone at the door. Keep looking for your park and I'll call you later."

He didn't even wait for a conformation before he hung up. John shivered in the wintery air and didn't move for a few moments. Sherlock said he was right about the Globe and the park... but it was the wrong park?

John sighed and pulled the phone from his ear. He brought up his navigation app and typed in 'park.' As he typed, it gave him nearby areas he might mean. After just that word, John looked at his list of options. The very top one made him pause.

"Park street?" he asked aloud and clicked it. It was close, so he'd be fine walking. It was like just following one road that kept changing names. Before he even got to where his GPS was leading him, he found the directions saying 'turn onto park street'. John laughed ironically. "Stupid GPSs," he muttered.

So he was there, but now there was one question. What did Park Street have to do with Shakespeare? John slipped his phone into his pocket and began to walk down the street. He checked every sign, even the graffiti, for any reference to Shakespeare. He didn't think Sherlock would be mean enough to have his clues hint to Shakespeare written on the wall, but it was always a possibility.

John stopped walking. A road crossed Park Street here. On one side it said Emerson Street. On the other it said New Globe Walk. John checked a map in his head and looked down New Globe Walk. The Globe Theater was down that way. Park Street marked the beginning of the road that took you to the Globe. He turned his head to the left and let out a breathy laugh that brought up more fog. A parking lot, enclosed by a concrete wall, marked the corner of Emerson and Park.

"Where the Bard leaves his car," John chuckled and stepped forward to go around the corner toward the entrance of the parking area.

Again he stopped. On the corner was graffiti. At first John was going to ignore it. It was written smaller than most graffiti text he'd seen and there were hearts around it that were bleeding. What made him stop and read it was that the bottom was signed with SH, like a letter, and the graffiti was tagged with the name Raz. John knew too well who both signatures meant. SH was Sherlock Holmes. Raz was the poor kid in jail for the shooting. The graffiti, upon closer reading, was a hodgepodge of lines from Shakespeare with two words written in odd yellow to stand them apart from the quoted lines. How witty.

"I pray you, do not fall in love with me," it read, and John felt his chest contract.

"For I am falser than bows made in wine.

 _For_ Love is like a child,

That longs for everything it can come by.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

The stroke of death is as a lovers pinch, Which hurts and is desired.

Love goes by haps; some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

 _But_ the course of true love never did run smooth."

John pressed his lips together. It was a love poem that seemed discouraging at first but ended in hope? John had only known Sherlock for three months. Were all these lines of love truly meant for him?

A woman, who had been standing under the blue windows across the street, now grabbed John's upper arm. John turned to her and saw she was homeless by the state of her clothes. She had muddy blonde hair and sunken eyes. Yet she blew bubble gum as though she looked like everyone else. John opened his mouth to ask what she wanted, but then she was holding out a manila envelope addressed to J.H.W.

"Um, thank you," John said as he took the envelope. The woman blew a large bubble, looking him over, then she turned and walked away without a word. Wrinkling his nose, John turned the envelope over in his hands.

It didn't looked tampered with. In fact it looked sealed for a war. He pried open the lip and found a slightly smaller envelope inside. Sherlock must have really wanted to hide the contents from his messenger because this one was also closed with the force of gorilla glue. John grunted as he forced open this one too, not feeling guilty at all about the horrid appearance of the envelopes when he was done. If Sherlock had wanted them open cleanly, he should have sealed them easier.

Finally John was able to reach in and pull out the contents. When he saw them, he had to put a hand to his mouth to stop any unnecessary noises escaping. Inside the envelopes had been three large photographs of Sherlock. They weren't of crime scenes. They were just of Sherlock. He looked a bit off, trying to figure out what one was supposed to do in photographs, and he wasn't smiling in any of them. Still, they were of Sherlock. He wasn't wearing the big coat he'd worn in the crime scene photos. He was wearing a black suit jacket, black slacks, and a purple collared shirt. In the third photo, he'd lost his jacket somewhere. They were like photos someone might put in a portfolio only without the professional back drop.

_'He's a bit camera shy.'_

_'I'll be wary of cameras as well.'_

_'Aw, don't do that. It's the only photograph I have of you.'_

John rubbed at his eyes and took a sniffled breath. Sherlock had taken photos of himself just for John. It took several deep breaths to get control of his emotions then, but he managed it. He slipped the photos back into the envelopes and pulled out his phone. With a tap of the screen, he took a photo of the graffiti Sherlock had Raz put up.

"Oh, Happy Valentine's Day indeed," he said, shaking his head in the wonder of it. He opened a text message, not waiting for Sherlock to call back.

'Thank you so much,' he wrote. 'This was really great.'

And though Sherlock was supposed to be busy, he sent back a reply quickly. John hailed a taxi going toward the Globe before he answered it.

'The bait was tasty, then? SH' it asked.

John chuckled and pat the envelopes in the seat next to him. 'Very,' he sent back.

'Then I shall have to go fishing more often. SH'

And John really couldn't argue with that.


	9. Chapter 9

John had never felt quite as giddy as he did following Valentine's Day, but he would soon learn not to let anything happy lead him into complacency. February was barely over when the joy of Sherlock's photos was ripped from him. Or, more precisely, burned from him. Nothing would be the same then.

It was four days of hell, starting with a routine trip to the police station. Lestrade welcomed him warmly. A black officer named Donovan greeted him suspiciously, as though she thought he was a freak for simply looking into police files when he wasn't police.

"Don't mind her. She never liked Sherlock. Then you show up and take up his case. She's bound to dislike you. She sort of dislikes everyone," Lestrade said.

That made John feel better, but, "What I'm doing is sort of illegal, isn't it?" he asked. "I mean a civilian having access to crime documents?"

"Yeeeaah, but so long as no one tells the higher ups, we'll be fine," Lestrade assured.

"She won't tell?" John asked, noticing that Donovan had just now stopped watching him.

"Nah. She's all bark and no bite." Lestrade pat John on the shoulder to reassure him and then let him to his work.

John took out the street photos and looked at them, as he'd done several times before. This was his first trip here since Valentine's Day, and somehow having photos of Sherlock at home made ignoring him in the photos that much easier. He let his eyes scan the photos and focus on just the crowd.

"Oh my God," John gasped as he noticed a face in the crowd. He pulled one of the other photos quickly over and squinted at the photos. "Oh my God," he said again.

Lestrade looked up from someone else's desk, where he was looking over a lab report. He nodded to the officer and then moved quickly over to John, who was now pulling out three more street shots of crime scenes.

"You find something?" the detective asked, leaning over John's shoulder.

"Do you know this man?" John asked and pointed to a guy in the first street shot.

He was a bit short, with short black hair. In this photo, his hair was slicked back and he wore a collared shirt. John pulled up another. There was another man. He wore a hoodie and his hair was nearly buzzed. John pointed in all five photos where a similar man stood in all of them. Each time he looked just a little different, but it was definitely the same guy at every scene.

"My God," Lestrade exclaimed. "He was always there. I never noticed."

"Do you recognize him?" John asked.

Lestrade shook his head. "Do you?"

John frowned at the photos. "I feel like I do. I see him, and I think... I feel nervous, almost... scared? I feel like I should know who he is instantly."

"Think about it. Maybe you met him once?" Lestrade asked. He was intent and pulled over a chair to look through the photos again, staring at the man and making sure it was the same guy.

"I feel like I should have. I must have. I just don't know...," John trailed off and knit his eyebrows together. He felt like it had been on a street, just in passing. Maybe he hadn't even actually met this man? Maybe he'd just walked by him?

To an Italian restaurant. He saw him there, in front of the station, smiling across the street and whispering in another guy's ear. He was grinning over at John just before someone called his name and he went for lunch. A short man with dark hair in a suit, standing in front of the station?

"Bloody hell," John hissed. "He was there."

"Where?" Lestrade asked. John rubbed at his shoulder and frowned.

"He's the guy who told Raz to shoot me," John said, voice still hissing lowly. "He was there at the station before the gun went off."

"Are you sure?" Lestrade asked as the color drained from his face.

"Positive. Is there a way to check for him in the system?" John asked, handing the photos to Lestrade.

"Absolutely," Lestrade said and snatched the photos up. He turned and walked briskly into another section of the station that John couldn't go into. John shuffled through the papers in the box, but none seemed to matter next to the information they just got from those photos.

"Sir, can I see your badge?" a man asked, coming over. When John just looked at him, he continued, "Civilians aren't allowed to touch confidential documents."

"No. Lestrade - um, ask Detective Lestrade," John said, motioning toward the back area. The officer looked in that direction and then hooked his fingers under the box, lifting it from the table.

"I can't leave this with you until I clear it with the Inspector. Don't go away," the officer said and took the box into the back with him to find Lestrade.

John only had to wait about two minutes before there was a sudden explosion. John's heart jumped and he forgot to breathe for a moment. There were officers scrambling around to find out what happened, and then Lestrade was sliding out of the doors. He looked disheveled, like he'd been near the explosion, and he rushed over to where John stood, holding the table for support.

"What happened?" John asked. Lestrade looked from John to the empty table.

"Oh no," he groaned and shook his head. "Please tell me the box is still on this side of the doors."

"No," John said and Lestrade made a discontented noise. "An officer came and took it away until he could ask you if I was allowed to look at it."

"That's ridiculous!" Lestrade exclaimed. "Everyone in this office knows - Damn it!" He cursed. "We had a mole."

"Had?" John asked, feeling his chest deflate.

"A bomb went off in the back. An officer was caught in the blast. Shit. The whole box is gone," Lestrade cursed again.

"All of it?"

"Except the photos," Lestrade amended. "But those were our only copies of those case files. Damn it."

John's heart stopped for a minute and he whipped out his phone. His first photos of Sherlock were gone. Only the street shots were left. He had to warn Sherlock.

'Copy it all. Copy everything,' John texted. 'Someone's trying to stop the investigation. Make copies.'

Lestrade was off yelling orders to people, and John was just trying to catch his breath. His heart was still pounding, and his mind was still trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened. Then John's phone vibrated.

'Consider it done. SH' it said. John let out a breath of relief and then his pocket vibrated again. This time, John's chest felt squished... for an entirely negative reason.

John almost thought it was a copy text, but then.. 'Consider this my formal greeting, Doctor. Stay out of my business.'

"Are you alright?" It was Donovan, although John couldn't tell if she was truly concerned. "You look sick."

"N-no," John stuttered and caught his breath. "No it's fine." He couldn't explain why, but he didn't trust her. He didn't think she was a bad person, but he wouldn't tell her what was happening. "I'm fine."

"Alright. Well don't go anywhere. You're a witness. We're going to need your statement. Sit down," she said and then walked away, leaving John alone in the area.

His pocket went off again.

'Boom'

And that was day one.

\-- -- -- --

John was at the jail the next day, wasting no time. He would have been there earlier, but Donovan hadn't been kidding about the police report. John had waited around at the station for over four hours while they detailed the bombing like a crime scene and took statements from everyone in contact with the box. As soon as they told him he could go, John grabbed Lestrade to organize a jail meeting.

Who? With the killer of Jasmine Sheffield. He wanted to ask Raz, someone he knew would be involved, but he didn't want to endanger Raz anymore than he already had. Raz was a good kid. So John went for a new convict instead.

The man that sat down across from him at the table was a stout looking man with large bags under his eyes and a sorrowful face. He seemed surprised at who was waiting for him, but he didn't hesitate to take his seat.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Doctor John Watson," John replied. "And you're Ian Monkford, the man who killed Jasmine Sheffield."

Ian seemed to grow more upset at the mention of Jasmine. He lowered his eyes to the table. "What do you want?"

"I want the man who planned it," John said easily, with more deadly seriousness than he could have imagined. Ian's eyes sprang to his and then quickly around the room.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

John shook his head. "No. No. Yes, you do. You're not a killer, Ian. You feel guilty about Jasmine. I'm willing to try and stop the man who hooked you into the plot. All you have to do is give me a name or a location or something."

"No, you don't understand," Ian said, lowering his voice to a whisper. "I won't survive in here if I tell you. He has eyes and ears everywhere."

It sounded just like Raz. This was definitely the right guy, the guy in all the street shots, the guy who'd had Raz shoot John.

"I won't tell anyone... and we're the only ones in here except for the guard waaaay over there. Just whisper it to me," John coaxed. "And I'll asked my friend in the force to give you extra security."

Ian shook his head and closed his eyes. John opened his mouth to try more tempting methods but then Ian opened his mouth and let out a heavy gasp.

"I didn't.... I didn't want to kill her. I just wanted to escape my debt. He said he'd help me disappear, me and my wife, if I just did this for him. But I killed her and he left me to the judges," Ian whispered.

"He's still out there, Ian. He's out there hurting more people. I just need to know who he is or how you contacted him," John said, lowering his voice as well and leaning a bit closer. The guard shifted and John leaned back to his previous position. The guard relaxed.

"M... Moriarty," Ian Monkford finally breathed out, as though saying the name would summon the man and all his forces. His eyes darted about the room again. "No," he said. "No, I can't say anymore. Don't ask me. We're done here. Leave me alone. They'll kill my wife. They'll kill me. Get out."

Ian stood up and knocked his chair over. He shook his head and stumbled back from the table until the guard came up to restrain him in case this was a farce to cause trouble. Ian was in such a hurry to get back behind the bars of his cell where he felt safe that he basically pulled the guard toward the door.

John watched him go, saw Ian throw one last look back at him in fear, and then he was alone. He sighed, stood up, and pulled on his jacket. As he passed the guard on the other side of the door, he stopped and smiled.

"Hello," he said.

"Morning," the guard said. He was a large man with a black beard.

"I was wondering about another prisoner," John said. The guard looked at him. "How familiar are you with the criminals who've been through here in the past?"

"I know each one by name and face," the guard answered.

"Good. Good. I was wondering if a man by the name of Moriarty had ever been in this prison," John said, but at the name, the guard went tense.

"Nope," he said. He didn't sound like he was lying. "But I think it's time you left."

"O-kay," John said, turning to the exit. "Well thanks for your help."

The guard just grunted, so John took his cue and left the facility. He wasn't ten minutes out into the overcast London streets before his phone vibrated with a text.

'You're selfishness is astounding, Doctor. You just continue to leave dead bodies in your righteous wake, don't you?' It read.

John froze there on the street and looked back toward the prison, but it was out of view. Not wasting a second more, he quickly called the number the texts were originating from. It barely rang once before it was picked up on the other end of the line. However, no one spoke in greeting.

"Moriarty?" John asked into the phone.

"Hello!" The peppy, excited voice on the other end replied and then dropped into entertained seriousness. "Took you long enough."

"Why are you after me?" John asked, looking around the street and then up at the windows.

"You?" Moriarty asked, near giggling. "Who said this was about you? Who are you?"

"But then why-?" John asked, but Moriarty's voice cut him off, dark and very serious. His accent dropped too.

"Sherlock Holmes," he said. "I can't allow you to continue, Doctor. I've already killed him once, but because of you, he just won't die." There was a pause in which John took several steps forward and then "Kind of like a cockroach, really."

"You killed Sherlock," John said, finally forming words. The idea swirled around his mind until it made him dizzy.

"Oh look, Folks! Not as dumb as he looks. Whoops! Yes he is! This took you months. Sooo average. Honestly, how can Sherlock stand you?" Moriarty asked, sighing dramatically.

"Shut up," John ordered, walking faster.

"No, I mean it," Moriarty insisted, as though he were complimenting John. "You're so boringly normal. Sherlock was brilliant, although he ended as a normal person. It was so disappointing how easy it was to lure him to his death. All I had to do was-"

"Stop it!" John shouted into the phone, glaring at the concrete as he walked over it. He didn't want to hear Moriarty recount how he murdered Sherlock. He didn't want to hear that from a psychotic killer. He wanted to know how it happened, but he didn't want the sick details Moriarty was sure to give him.

"Uh-oh! Found little Johnny-Boy's soft spot for Sherlock," Moriarty teased in a sing-song voice. Then he dropped his tone again and sucked in a heavy breath. "Look. If you don't stop meddling, I'll burn you. I'll _burn_ the heart out of you."

John's chest skipped a beat. "What?" he breathed.

"Bye!" and Moriarty's excited farewell ended the call.

John felt an unprecedented anxiety come over him. It had been a short phone call and yet this man sounded insane. He slipped from gleeful to deadly serious, and John didn't doubt him when he said he killed Sherlock. This man had convinced Raz into shooting at John and Ian to kill Jasmine Sheffield. John shook his head. He was almost too afraid to see what Moriarty would do if John kept digging, but he was more afraid of leaving the case unresolved. Now not only was his life and Raz's story on the line, but this was also Sherlock's murderer. In his name, John would not stop.

And that was only day two. The worst was yet to come.


	10. Chapter 10

Work was a welcome reminder of the real world. John had never thought work would be so inviting. He always expected to love his work, saving people's lives or making the passing easier. He always expected to be useful and wanted by his patients. He'd even expected some people to hate him for their loved ones dying. He'd never expected to feel relieved by walking in the front doors of a hospital. Familiar, comfortable, but never relieved. And yet that was where he found himself on day three.

It was a relief to know that this was a hospital and people died in hospitals. People were also saved there. It was like John's second life, away from the murder scene shots and the people dying because of his investigation. At the hospital, he put those thoughts away and focused on his patients.

Unless, of course, Sherlock texted him. That's when he'd find a moment to check his phone and reply.

Sherlock was fine, as usual, and knew only a few basics. The files were attacked, that's why he needed to make copies. That's all Sherlock knew. He didn't know about the threatening phone call. He didn't know about the meeting with Ian. He only knew about the bomb in the police department.

"Dr. Watson?" a woman called. John jumped from his thoughts and smiled at her.

"Oh. Sarah, I told you to just call me John," he said. She smiled back but then frowned.

"I was going to, but you looked so serious that it didn't seem to fit. Are you alright?" Sarah asked, gently touching his arm. John drew what comfort he could from it, but it felt like trying to suck pudding through a straw.

"I-I'll be fine. I got a bit of a fright the other day. Bomb went off in the building I was in. Oh no, don't look like that. Only the bomber got hurt, but it did leave a few of us rattled," John explained. It was only the start of his worries, but if he wasn't going to let Sherlock in on the rest, he'd be damned to let anyone else know the full extent of the problem.

"Oh my God," Sarah gasped all the same. "Well if you need to unwind, just let me know. I'll treat you to drinks or something. Okay?"

"Okay," John said, but Sarah pulled her hand back as though she could feel the emotional distance between them.

John wanted to accept her offer. He knew if he did, he could probably get laid, but he also knew he'd be tense until he could hear Sherlock's voice over the phone. Only the thought of Sherlock brought any true calm to him. Just texting wasn't enough right now. However, Sherlock was busy. He'd said not to call until the later part of the day. John's shoulders bunched up every time he looked at the clock and saw how slow the hands moved around the circle.

"I'll call you," John said. "If I need anything, I mean." and he gave an encouraging smile.

"Okay, good," Sarah said and smiled. She nodded and then turned to go see to her next appointment. She stopped then and turned on heel. "Ahhhh, I almost forgot. Molly wants to see you in the morgue. I don't know why."

Then they waved at each other and she was gone. John's chest went hard. Even though he knew Sherlock had died months ago by Moriarty's planning, he still heard 'morgue' and thought he'd find Sherlock's body down there.

Shaking it off, John checked his schedule. He had no appointments for an hour. He could spare Molly some time. Then he was off, walking briskly but not in a hurry. What could Molly possibly want with John in a morgue?

As he entered the mortuary, he saw Molly puzzling over a body. As he let the door swing shut, he saw Inspector Lestrade standing across the room from her. He seemed tired as he looked at John and then nodded with a soft smile to Molly. Molly tried to smile at John but it flinched off her face when she began to talk.

"Hello, Dr. Watson. I know we haven't met a lot, but I really admire your work. You're a great doctor. I haven't had any of your patients in here," she said. John opened his mouth to reply but Lestrade cleared his throat. "Oh right. So, Inspector Lestrade just arrived with the med team that brought in a body. He said he wants to talk to you."

"Who died?" John asked. Adding Lestrade in the picture made the idea that this body would be Sherlock even brighter in his head and he had to beat it back and remind himself that it wasn't possible. Then again, it wouldn't be the first impossible thing to happen to John in the past few months.

"Ian Monkford," Lestrade said.

"The... The man who killed Jasmine Sheffield?" John asked, incredulous. "Impossible. I just spoke to him yesterday."

"Yep, and they found his body this morning in his cell," Lestrade explained and walked closer to the body on the table.

"Official cause of death is poisoning," Molly said, pulling the sheet down from poor Ian's face. "Haven't figured out how it got into his system, though. I only know it almost definitely wasn't through the mouth."

John stepped close and looked over the body without touching it. Molly pulled the sheet down to Ian's waist to give John more to look at. John shifted and looked over both sides before returning to his original position and pointed to Ian's shoulder.

"What's that?" he asked, drawing attention to a small puncture wound.

Molly bent to check while Lestrade resisted the urge to get in the way by poking his nose into their business. Molly touched the wound with her gloved finger and made a curious noise.

"It's a needle hole," she said. "I've seen similar holes on drug addicts..."

She trailed off and looked uneasily over at Lestrade. He shook his head and waved off whatever idea they'd both shared. John looked between the two and stood up straight.

"What?" he asked. Lestrade went to shake his head again, but John interrupted the motion. "No, seriously. What have I missed?"

"Sherlock - well it was probably before you knew him. He used to do drugs pretty regularly. Before I knew him as a detective, I knew him as an addict. Caught him buying, but he'd been clean for almost three years when he... you know," Lestrade explained.

"Wow. You're right. I had no idea," John said, running a hand through his hair. Lestrade let out a stream of air from his nose.

"John, look," he began and picked a folder up from an empty table. "The ID for the suspect in the street shots came back, but I'm worried about giving it to you."

"What? Why?" John asked. Molly gently moved John away from the table so she could test the new entry point.

"Well to be frank, people keep dying around you, don't they? This is two deaths this week. I'm almost worried I'll die just by holding these photos again," the inspector explained, holding up the folder.

"You saying you think I had something to do with these deaths?" John asked, knitting his brow in a glare.

"No. No, of course not. I'm just saying that someone obviously doesn't like this case being tampered with," the older man said. "Just... be careful." And he held out the documents for John.

"Thank you," John said, taking the folder. "Can you do me a favor and try to keep news of this from hitting the papers and stuff?"

"I'll do my best," Lestrade promised, but the way he looked at John felt like someone saying goodbye and sorry at the same time.

\-- -- -- --

Lestrade said he'd keep things out of the media, but John understood that would be difficult. The whole police force was undergoing examination for leaks and rats. Even Lestrade had to be inspected, and they had not been happy when they found out about John and even less happy when they learned about Sherlock. It had been news to John as well, that Sherlock had been a sort of secret helper of the police and that all the files John had been looking at were illegally collected.

Moriarty knew all of it, of course. He'd texted John every hour on the hour from the time he got off work that night until he went in the next morning to remind John that he knew everything he'd done or was doing, everywhere he was and where he family lived. He knew it all - except of course, about the ID they had on him in the photos. He never mentioned it, and John hoped to keep him in the dark about having IDed him. He didn't want to know what Moriarty would do to him or his sister or even his family up in North York. But the 'teasing' messages through the night with photos of his family kept John up with nightmares. That was how day four had begun.

But none of that, none of the death threats or the stalker photos or the bombs or dead bodies, mattered at all, because when John slipped off his coat and stepped into a linen room, his phone vibrated and the voice that answered back to him made everything melt away.

"Hello?" John answered, sitting against the back wall of the silent but fluffy room. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and let out a tight sigh.

"John," Sherlock replied as was customary.

He began to rant about Lestrade and Mycroft and the petty boringness of life, and John soaked up every word. He tilted his head back and looked to the ceiling, surprised by the way his eyes stung like he wanted to cry. His chest heaved with the relief of hearing Sherlock's voice, a relief he had not expected to hit him so hard. They had not spoken in over two weeks. It had been only text messages. At first John could handle it, but not after this week. And hearing Sherlock speak, John realized he found solace and companionship in this voice. It was deep but not entirely smooth. It was usually bored or annoyed but sometimes excited. It was fast, never slow. And John loved the form that came with it. The pressed collars and the dark curls and the pale eyes and the cheekbones you could cut yourself on.

"Are you alright?" Sherlock was asking, and John realized he'd started crying silently. No sobs or anything, but his face was wet. He took several deep breaths and shook his head.

"Just... keep talking, please," he said and wiped at his face. "I just... it's been a hard few days and I... I just wanted to hear you talk."

Sherlock paused for a moment and then took a breath. "Did I do something?" he asked. "In your time, I mean. I haven't done anything to you in this year. But I'd like to know if I'm the reason behind your stress right now."

"No," John said forcefully, shaking his head. "No, it's not you. It's not. I mean, maybe a bit of it is, but no. No, not at all. I'm just under a lot of stress. I just need you to distract me."

"Did you watch the match yesterday?" Sherlock asked. John snorted.

"Oh please. You didn't watch the match yesterday. What makes you think I did?" the doctor asked and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

"Nothing. You said to distract you. I was making conversation. And it worked. You laughed," Sherlock replied. "Tell me if I'm wrong."

"No. You're right," John said and lowered his head.

For a moment there was silence where they both just breathed and listened to each other breathe. It was strange, John thought. His stress was caused by Sherlock's case box, by trying to figure out who Moriarty was so he could put the man behind bars for killing Sherlock. John's stress was caused by the way his chest felt punched whenever someone mentioned Sherlock's name and whenever he thought back to Christmas, and yet... and yet Sherlock was the only one who could lift that stress. John took a slow breath and closed his eyes.

"I miss you, Sherlock," he murmured.

Sherlock didn't answer, just continued to breathe, but that was answer enough for John right now. It wasn't a rejection. It was tacit acceptance. Sherlock was agreeing with silence. John breathed heavily as he got his chest under control and then sighed and cleared his throat at the same time.

"I only have a few minutes," John explained, dropping his head back against the wall again. "Tell me about Mycroft?"

It took Sherlock three more breaths to decide on a response. "Sure," he agreed, voice heavy, but it lightened up as he continued. "The first thing you have to understand about my brother is that he operates the British government, no matter what he says, and he's secretly poisoning your drinking water - metaphorically, of course. But he has the same effect. Mycroft is dubious and not to be trusted with a toy chess set much less a country run like one. Although his position does come in handy when I'm trying to investigate private areas."

John smiled at the ceiling as he felt his breathing even out. Listening to Sherlock was the only medication he needed right now. This was all he needed.

\-- -- -- --

John was feeling so good after his conversation with Sherlock that he hardly glanced at the television in the waiting room as he was heading out the door. He waved goodbye to Sarah, who then caught him to ask about going out for drinks again, but he told her he'd have to reschedule. He wasn't tense anymore, so he didn't even want a beer or anything. He just wanted to go home and watch some crap telly. Sarah gave him a brief hug, wished him well, and John passed right under the latest news flashing on the screen without so much as an upward glance.

It was early evening, still a little bit of light in the sky. John didn't feel threatened as he walked home from work, as he did often when he didn't feel like riding in a stuffy cab. Tonight he felt good, felt safe, so he didn't see the need to pay a cabbie to take him the long way home when he could walk in a nearly straight line.

His phone went off while he was looking up at the clouds. They were visible over the roof of a nearby building and looked unusual to John, but it was probably the evening light.

"Hello?" he asked, not recognizing the number.

"I told you to stop meddling," Moriarty's voice came over the line.

"What? But I haven't done anything," John said, glancing around as he continued to walk. He was almost home. His mind told him he would be safe if he could just make it to his apartment.

"Oh Doctor Watson. Don't you watch the news? You gave the police my picture. You got my name and then my photo? Sherlock really laid some good groundwork for you. Unfortunately, it's going to be the death of both of you. If I detect one more whiff of you on this case, I'll have to start aiming the big guns at your family. You know I can," Moriarty warned.

"Wh-what about this time?" John asked. "Just a warning?"

Moriarty laughed, loudly and for far too long. It chilled John's spine, nearly squishing the warmth in his chest that Sherlock had renewed.

"Oh John, John, John," Moriarty sighed. "I warned you. I told you I would stop you. I told you I'd-"

"Burn me," John murmured, eyes widening and heart speeding up. He hurried down Baker Street until he got the corner where he could see his apartment. "Oh Christ," he gasped.

"This is my last warning, Doctor. Do watch who's toes you walk over from now on." and Moriarty hung up.

"You- You bastard!" John cursed even though he knew the call was over. His eyes were fixed on the awkward clouds he'd seen before, which originated from John's apartment. A fire consumed the whole corner where John's window used to be visible.

John rushed forward to the building. People, some residents that he recognized, were crowding on the street and crying out. In the distance, John could hear the fire trucks. His heart hammered in his chest and he shoved through the crowd, forcing his way into the building despite people's yells for him to stop.

He couldn't, though. Everything he owned was in that apartment. Everything he held dear. John crashed through his heated door and dropped the floor to get below any smoke. The flames started by the windows, feeding themselves and licking up the glass. They spread from there around the building, destroying John's television and starting to drop onto his bed in the far corner.

"Shit!" John cursed, squinting against the heat as he hurried to his bed. He pulled his laptop from the side desk, still unharmed, and set it on the floor beside him. The bed was going up quick, but John grabbed the mattress and threw it off the bed. As the flames smashed into the wall and hissed angrily, he turned his eyes to the bed frame. There, still pinned against the frame near the side table, were Sherlock's photos. He snatched them up and slid them into the space on his laptop between the screen and keyboard.

As a batch of flames dropped near him from the roof, John jumped up and hurried for the door. Most of his property was up now, lost to ashes, but he could save the small pieces of Sherlock he still had. He coughed harshly as he rushed down the stairs and back out into the street. A woman put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from falling over as he coughed. A man nearby sneered at him for endangering his life for his laptop. John didn't care. He had Sherlock's pictures and he had his laptop, with his notes and his documents about the case and his work. Everything else was entirely replaceable. Even the documents were replaceable, but those photos were not.

John pulled out his phone as he stumbled away from the group and the firemen who were jumping off the trucks. It rang twice and then Sherlock picked up. At first, John couldn't say anything, just coughed into his hand and leaned against the nearest wall.

"John, what's happened? What's wrong?" Sherlock asked, and his honest worry touched John in the deepest part of his heart.

"F-Fire," John wheezed. "My apartment."

"Are you alright?" Sherlock rushed out. "Are you alright? Are you hurt? Do you need to call Mycroft?"

John shook his head and coughed again. "Sherlock... it was arson. Moriarty... the man behind the police station bombing..."

Sherlock's voice was deadly serious. "Run, John. Get away from there. Go somewhere no one would expect to find you." After a moment where John only let out a cough, Sherlock added a soft "Please."

John nodded and pressed his lips together. "I will," he said. "I know a place."

Even Sherlock seemed relieved by that thought, and John pushed away from the wall, heading away from the fire before anyone could remember to tell the firemen that John had be inside.


	11. Chapter 11

John stayed away from the police station. He stayed away from his old apartment, even after it had somehow been completely renovated after only two weeks. He suspected Mycroft had something to do with it, since he kept asking John why he hadn't moved back in. A lot of his possessions had been replaced, probably also thanks to Mycroft, but John couldn't bring himself to move back in. Moriarty knew about the apartment. He knew John's routine there.

So far, Moriarty didn't seem to know about John's current escape.

"I heard your apartment was remodeled," Sarah commented one morning at work almost a month later.

"Yeah. I heard that too," John said and pretended to be completely focused on his charts.

"John," she sighed. "That means you can move back in, doesn't it?"

"What? Don't you like me staying at yours?" John asked, looking up at her innocently. "I do the washing."

Sarah smiled and shook her head. "That's not the point. The point is we aren't even dating, and you have a perfectly good apartment waiting for you."

"Do you want to start dating?" John asked, twirling his pen in his hand.

"No," Sarah groaned and held her head. No one paid them any mind, sitting in John's office. "I mean I used to want that, but not anymore. You're clearly not interested, but that's not the point. Are you afraid to move back home?"

"No. And what do you mean 'clearly not interested'?" John asked.

"I mean the only things you brought from your apartment were a computer and some photos, photos you risked your life for, I might add, and you never calm down after work unless you get a good look at them, like you're afraid they're going to spontaneously combust," Sarah explained.

"How does that mean I'm not interested in you?" John asked.

Sarah looked at him pointedly. "John, I've seen the way you look at those photos. And even if that wasn't it, you give more attention to your phone than to any girl that comes up to you. Are the photos of the person you're always texting?"

John frowned. He hadn't noticed himself giving any special attention to his few pictures of Sherlock, but Sarah had seen him oogling them? Had she seen the pictures too?

"Have you seen the photos?" he asked. Sarah hesitated but then nodded. "What do you think?"

"He's a very handsome man," Sarah said, a sad look to her eyes. "He's very lucky, and so are you."

"Sorry?"

"It's obvious those pictures were taken just for you... and you obviously like this guy a lot. It's a sad loss to women when two attractive men turn out to be off the market, but at least you seem to be genuinely into him," Sarah said. "But I think you need to head home soon. I'm not sure I can handle living with you and having no chance with you."

"Oh, Sarah," John began and stood up. She put her hand up to stop him, but he continued. "It's just... just a crush. He's..."

"He's what?" Sarah asked, crossing her arms loosely, guarding herself from John.

"He's....," John shook his head a bit. "He's dead, Sarah. The man in the photographs died last year."

Sarah's expression filtered down through a few stages. First she seemed confused, almost annoyed, as though she thought John was lying. Then she was simply stunned. Her arms dropped and she put her hand against her hair like she would run her fingers through it but didn't. Then her expression became sympathetic and apologetic.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "How did it happen?"

"I.. I don't know," John said. "His brother knows, and we talk often, but uh... I haven't asked and I don't think he'd tell me. Not yet, anyway." Not until the anniversary of the death. "Sorry. Can we talk later?"

John motioned down to his charts, but he really just wanted to end the conversation. Sarah nodded, understanding the truth, and apologized for bringing it up. Saying goodbye by promising to see him at home, she turned and left the office. John dropped into his seat again and sighed.

He wanted to know, damn it. He wanted to know how Sherlock died and when so he could start trying to change it, but Mycroft wasn't budging. John had asked only a week ago, but Mycroft had ignored him. John wanted to know, but he didn't want to call Moriarty for the answer. He didn't want to give that psycho any more power than he already had. Not only that, but John had no guarantee that Moriarty would tell the truth.

John smacked his fist down on his desk and was both glad and disappointed when it didn't make a loud noise. He groaned, rubbing his face down with his hands. Right now he would focus on getting out of Sarah's place. She had a point. A month with someone you weren't dating or shagging wasn't normal, but he didn't want to move back into his own apartment. Sighing, he put his hands together as though he were praying and pressed them up against his mouth. He hated apartment hunting, and he hated being so afraid.

\-- -- -- --

Searching for a new home always had a sense of apprehension to it. John had experienced it a total of four times since moving from his parent's home. One of those was only stressful because it involved moving into a dorm with a guy he didn't know. He'd asked Harriet to sign up with him but she refused, saying she was moving in with a friend off campus. Traitor.

Now John was walking down the street, looking for the open flat he saw online. He was trudging down Baker Street, wondering if he should just use his phone GPS, when he heard an older woman shriek. John looked up in time to see a man running away from the older woman, a small purse in his hand. The man was running straight toward John. Without hesitation, John pulled back his arm and clothes lined the man.

"Back off man," the thief shouted as he pushed himself back to his feet. He lunged for John, but John side stepped and brought his fist over to connect with the thief's cheekbone. The thief went down and John hissed and shook out his hand.

"Oh thank you!" the older woman had caught up to the fight and was snatching her purse from the barely conscious body. "Dirty rascal!" she scolded and kicked him in the side a little.

John looked at the woman while she checked for her belongings and thought she looked very familiar. When it hit him, he felt both joyously stunned and in fear, but he pushed the joy into the focus.

"Ms. Hudson?" he asked with a grin. The woman stopped checking her purse and looked over.

"Oh!" she gasped and then smiled broadly. "You're the man from the train, aren't you?"

"Yes. I'm John," he said, reintroducing himself. "It's lovely to see you. Is your shop around here?"

Ms. Hudson seemed lost for a second but then she gasped and nodded. "Oh yes," she said and motioned behind her. "It's just down the street. I only own part of the shop now, but I do still own the entire section of building it's part of."

"Wow. Do you own a chain of stores?" John asked with a laugh.

"Oh no, dear. I own flats. I'm a landlady," she said. "Are you in the market?"

John was stunned for a moment. He looked down at his paper of directions and then down the road toward the shop and flats. He sighed and rubbed his head. The world was a small and cruel place. Finally he nodded and stopped messing with his hair and ear.

"Y-Yeah. Yes, actually. I was just coming to check out a flat, which, from what you just said, sounds like I was looking for you," John said.

"Oh, well isn't life so funny sometimes?" Ms. Hudson asked with a laugh. "I was just on my way there. I'll show you where it is."

John cleared his throat and motioned for her to lead the way, which she did without hesitation. She seemed happier than she'd been on the train. It wasn't a holiday where she could be lonely, and time had passed since Sherlock's death. She'd had time to cope. John still hadn't come to full terms with it. He still had to talk to Sherlock every day and pretend nothing was wrong.

Oh hell. Sherlock said Ms Hudson cooked for him the other day. He lived with her! John hid his jittery heart. Had Sherlock truly been so close to where John moved in? Ms. Hudson entered 221b and sighed contentedly.

"I only have two open flats," the elderly woman explained, closing the door behind John. "One's on the first floor. One's on the second."

"Which one did Sherlock live in?" John asked. Ms. Hudson froze in slipping off her coat for only a moment and then quickly hung it up.

"I'm sorry?" she asked. "Did you know Sherlock?"

"Yes," John lied. How would he explain this? "I didn't know about his passing until... well until I got back from Christmas vacation."

"Oh," Ms. Hudson made a muffled angry noise. "Happy Christmas indeed, I bet. Probably ruined the whole holiday for you. I know it had me a real mess. Poor Sherlock. I don't have his apartment open for sale. I keep thinking I should, but I haven't even managed to pack any of his things away."

"What about his brother?" John asked. "Hasn't Mycroft come to get things?"

Ms. Hudson shook her head. "Oh no. Those two hardly spoke civilly. I imagine Sherlock told him to leave things alone."

"Can I-" John swallowed a lump in his throat. He hadn't decided to ask the question until this moment, but now he felt compelled to ask it. "Can I see his place? Just for a second? Please?"

Ms Hudson ran her hands down her pale pink dress as though pulling out wrinkles and mulled over the question. She looked at John with pressed lips and then sighed in both annoyance and revere.

"My goodness. You and Sherlock are so alike. I can't imagine telling you no... Just don't move anything," she said and pulled keys from her purse. She led the way upstairs to the first floor and unlocked the first door they came to.

Sherlock's flat seemed to take up two floors on one side of the building. The room they entered was the kitchen, but they moved quickly through it to the sitting room. Ms Hudson took a quick look around to check the location of objects, nodded, sniffled, and turned to John.

"I'll go make you a cuppa," she said and pat him on the shoulder as she hurried her way out of the flat. John nodded in her direction and heard the door shut behind her quick retreat.

He stood silent for a moment, just looking around and not touching anything. The kitchen had been cleaned out mostly, but a chemistry set and two machines John didn't know the purpose of were still sitting out. The rest of the visible home was filled with rubbish. One wall had a mirror with clippings pinned to the wall all around it. Some had strings tied to their pins that connected them to other clippings.

John walked over to the mirror and looked in on himself, imagining Sherlock sitting in the chair behind him, watching him closely. There was a violin sitting on the side table that John imagined Sherlock held loosely against his neck as though he might play it, but he didn't. He fingers were poised, gently holding the bow. John closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

When he opened his eyes, he traced the many strings with his fingertips, trying to connect the dots like Sherlock had. How did all these stories match up? Similar MOs? Same people involved? There were far too many. John sighed and dropped his hand from the wall. There was a remote sitting on the mantle below the mirror, and John found himself picking it up. A small piece of paper on the back read 'push play'... so John did.

To his right, by the window, a radio whirred and began to play a CD. It was violin music and sounded like a homemade recording. John took a minute to listen to the quality of recording and the skill of the violin. It was really good. John had never heard the song before, but it was beautiful and slow. John could imagine Sherlock standing by the window with that shining instrument, pulling the bow across the strings and notating the movements as he went, composing the song just for John to hear... but that was ridiculous. Sherlock didn't feel the same way other people felt. He didn't care for John the same way that John cared for him.

The flat's single occupant turned back to the mirror and found a news clipping about him pinned in the upper left corner. It was about the award John had received for his dissertation. John knit his brow. The whole corner was about John. There were a few pages of his dissertation tacked together, a photo of John on his uncle's farm, and a copy of the Christmas photo John used to have a copy of, and an article on John from his university's journal. John felt his heart contract for a moment before he could breathe normally again.

God, being in Sherlock's flat, listening to Sherlock play the violin, and seeing Sherlock's detailed mess was almost too much. John took a shuddering breath. He could see Sherlock playing in the window by the radio. He could almost feel Sherlock guiding his fingers around the web of strings. Sherlock was too potent here... too close. John almost swore he could hear him talking.

John's chest froze. He could hear Sherlock talking. Sherlock's voice was on the recording of the violin! John gasped and walked closer to the radio.

"Recording five of eight. Best to begin in the middle of a case, near the end. No case is ever solved at the beginning, before anything happens. Recording one of eight has the motive. This recording is self composed music. Do enjoy yourself, John," Sherlock's voice said. John's heart skipped a beat. "Don't look too dazed. This scavenger hunt of mine should lead you around and give you something to think on when I'm not taking up your time with phone calls and texts. There are eight CDs recorded by me for you hidden in specific places for you or en route to be sent to you. Solve the clues and you'll be worthy to receive the first recording, on which I explain myself openly for your enjoyment. I figured that would be a worthy prize."

John ran a hand over his hair. Sherlock had actually recorded this for him. For him, John Watson. Just for him. He took a deep breath and nodded, his heart making it hard to breathe.

"If I'm right, this should get to you about mid-April. No. Make that early April," Sherlock continued and John checked his watch for the date even though he already knew Sherlock was right. How did he do that? How did he know? "I'll be recording four more songs and then it's up to you to find the next disc - record six. All you need to find it can be heard in this recording. Good luck... and I'll see you soon."

Sherlock went silent for a moment, there was the turn of a page, and the violin started up again. John shook his head.

"No you won't," he said, annoyance creeping into the edges of his voice. "You shouldn't promise things like that. You don't know yet. You don't know you're gone."

"I've heard that tape four times," Ms Hudson said, startling John from his ill heart strings. He turned to see her handing him a cup of tea. "I didn't know a John, and it didn't really hit me that it was you until I was downstairs just now. I heard the violin start up and I thought 'it's him.' I couldn't make heads or tails of it myself."

"Oh," John murmured and looked back to the radio. How was he supposed to find recording six if Ms Hudson, who'd heard it four times, couldn't figure it out?

"But I started thinking about the third time I heard it that... it does seem like he knew somehow," the older woman remarked and sighed. She was looking down at his violin. "He was always dashing about, but I never thought he was reckless enough to get hurt. And the more I think on it, the more I think he did know his time was coming. I don't know how he knew, but I never understood half the things he knew, to be honest."

John took a long drink of tea and let out a heated breath. Sherlock wasn't told by John. John wasn't going to tell him. He wasn't, no matter how much he wanted to. Mycroft said it was for the best that Sherlock not know.

"I knew I liked you for a reason," Ms Hudson continued and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry?" John asked, tearing his eyes away from the music stand and his ears away from the violin music.

"Sherlock's never had many friends, but I can tell he meant a lot to you. I hope you told him as much before he left us." Ms. Hudson made a humming noise and headed for the door. "How would you like to stay for some supper? We can talk about flats later."

"Thanks very much," John called after her. He wanted to feel sad, depressed. He wanted to feel pleased. Sherlock had lived so close to where John moved to. Ms Hudson was so friendly. But all he felt was a tainted melancholy, tainted with annoyance and anger. Sherlock's stupid promises and ignorance. John hadn't told Sherlock anything yet. Sherlock didn't have a clue - about how deeply John felt already or about his own imminent death. And John was irrationally angry at Sherlock for not knowing those things, and was upset at himself for not telling him. It was a twisted sort of irony that only someone like Moriarty could really enjoy, and yet John was the only privy party.


	12. Chapter 12

The wind blew harshly between the buildings, forcing John to shield his face with one arm. He pulled the phone away while he shook his head in the aftermath and then put it back against his ear.

"Sorry. What was that? The wind was blowing," he said.

"I said yes, I do play the violin," Sherlock said. "I picked up my mother's violin when I was five and have been playing ever since."

"Did you take lessons? You're really good," John complimented as he hurried across a street.

"Thank you. No. I'm entirely self taught. Father didn't like the idea of spending money to teach his son a woman's instrument, but I preferred it that way. Teachers are infuriating hypocrites for the most part. It was much more efficient to teach myself."

"Yeah, well, good on you. Most people don't have the concentration and drive to teach themselves," John said and then snickered. "But then I guess you're not most people."

"No, I most certainly am not," Sherlock mused. John stepped inside his flat and heard a puffing noise through the phone.

"Are you smoking?" John asked.

"Would there be a problem with that?" Sherlock answered, sounding slightly defensive.

"A little. You'll develop lung cancer or something," John said.

Sherlock scoffed. "Nicotine helps me think. Smoking is good for brain work on cases."

John huffed and shook off his coat to hang it up. "Listen, my mother is a chain smoker. Thirty years, she's been doing it, and she's healthy as a horse unless she's got to walk more than thirty feet or go up an incline."

"So you're saying...."

"I'm saying, if you want to stay active and energetic, you should stop smoking. It'll help you breathe easier."

"Uh! Breathing. Breathing's boring," Sherlock complained but then sighed. "There. It's out. Happy now?"

"Very, actually." John moved into his kitchen and went about putting some tea on. "So back to the violin. I didn't know you composed either."

"Composing helps me think sometimes," Sherlock said.

"You should stick to that more often and give up the smoking," John said. "Doctor's advice. I hope you trust your doctor."

"Only a fool argues with his doctor," Sherlock said with a grin in his voice. There was a slight sigh, a pause of silence as John poured water, and then "Of course I trust you."

John turned off the faucet and made an affirmative noise, but was actually taking a moment to absorb and enjoy that thought. The softness of Sherlock's voice when he said it and the personal tone to the statement were beautiful in John's ear.

"John," Sherlock said after the long silence. That sounded beautiful too.

"Sherlock," John answered. Another short silence followed before Sherlock cleared his throat.

"We were discussing violins," he reminded.

"Oh, right," John said and returned to making tea. "Do you compose a lot, then?"

"I never took it seriously, if that's what you mean. I played at my parents' parties sometimes, but never in a public setting, for a recital or professional. It's my personal hobby. Something I very much like doing."

"Even more than case work?" John asked, leaving the kitchen to start doing laundry for the first time since his move.

"Maybe not more than case work," Sherlock conceded. "Nothing beats a good mystery."

"Mmm. Maybe we should never meet in person again, then," John mused.

"Why do you say that?" Sherlock asked, alert. John smiled.

"Well I wouldn't be a mystery then, would I?" He turned the knob on the machine and jumped a little as it came to life.

"No. You wouldn't," Sherlock agreed, a bit softer, as though he was thinking about it for the first time in a long while. There was a hum of silence as John moved back to the kitchen. "But you'd be real."

"What do you mean?"

"Sometimes I think I'm imagining you. I've gone schizophrenic or psychotic as Anderson's always telling me. Sometimes I believe my brain has run too hard for too long and I've invented you to replace my skull... and by skull, I don't mean my own skull. I mean -"

"You mean the one on your mantel piece," John said. "Ms. Hudson says his name is Yorik. Was that you naming it or her attributing you to Hamlet?"

"That was Ms. Hudson. You really have been in my flat."

"Yep. Ms. Hudson had me over for dinner. I live on the floor above you now," John said and pulled out leftover dinner Ms Hudson had brought up for him.

"Do you? And you still call me? Why don't you just go downstairs if you want to talk about my violin composing?" Sherlock asked.

"Ummm...," John stalled. He hadn't thought about this. "Well you're actually on the way out. You don't live there anymore. Ms. Hudson only let me in to get the recording. Is it true you used to keep mold experiments in your kitchen?"

"That was one time, over two years ago. Ms. Hudson doesn't forget it because the whole building had to be cleared and cleaned when it got out of hand."

"You infected the building with mold?" John exclaimed, looking at the nearest wall suspiciously.

"Only my flat, but it was precautionary. I told Mycroft he was overreacting, but the man never listens to me."

John took a moment, his mind going over Mycroft and the way the older Holmes ate up any and all information about Sherlock. He cared about Sherlock so much, but Sherlock couldn't see it... or maybe Mycroft didn't show it well before the incident that deprived the world of Sherlock Holmes.

"I think you should talk to Mycroft more often. I've only met him in person once, but I can tell he worries about you," John said and poured himself some tea.

"I must be quite the inconvenience," Sherlock agreed.

"Never," John said and shook his head. "I mean he cares about you. You should just try to give him a ring sometime, and ignore whatever it is that made you dislike him."

"Well that's quite impossible, but if I say I'll try it once, will it make you happy?"

"Yes," John said with a grin and took a sip of his cup. He nodded at the flavor and went to sit on his couch. "You already did the recordings, didn't you?"

"Yes, in fact. I seem to have ideas almost exactly a year before you're effected by them." He seemed much too pleased with himself.

"Alright, then where's recording number six?" John asked. "You said there were clues on number five, but I've listened to it five times and I still don't hear any."

"Dear John, if I told you, it wouldn't be a scavenger hunt," Sherlock pointed out smugly.

"You're having fun with this, aren't you?" John asked.

"Oh, indubitably."

\-- -- -- --

The morgue was always a little odd to John. If not for the context alone, the place always smelled like dissection day in science class. Molly cleared her throat as she motioned around her lab.

"So a bomb blows up in a box you were investigating. The body of that guy comes to me. Ian Monkford, your friend from the jail, talks to you and gets a poison injection to the back of his shoulder. Your flat burns up and the charred body of a man is found in the alley below your window. Oh. Sorry about your flat by the way. I heard you had to move even after it got renovated," she said, biting her lower lip.

"Yeah. Rough times. Back to your explanation," John said. The news of the continuing body count of people involved with John's case work was nothing new.

"I'm just letting you know I completely understand. I wouldn't have been able to move back in right away either," Molly assured and then turned her back on him to clear her head and continue. "Anyway, I identified all the bodies, even the... exploded one, and sent the DNA and information to Detective Lestrade. He looked them up in cases and finds they all have something in common." She turned to John with a proud grin.

"Okay. And that would be?" John asked, urging her on. He didn't have a break all day. He had to go back to work eventually.

"Oh right. Sorry," she said, shaking her head but never dropping the smile. "The common factor in all the criminals was Sherlock. He put them all behind bars for their crimes. The other two had been released after their sentences or on bail, of course, but Ian would have been in for a few more years if he hadn't died. Anyway, the two who died blowing up evidence or your home had long grudges against Sherlock. Lestrade says they mentioned their distaste for Sherlock in audio recordings or in written statements, both before and after their time in the yard."

"And me. They all have a connection to me. They all died around me," John reminded.

"True. But you only interacted with them after Sherlock's... um.... right. Sherlock put them away, but when they got out, Sherlock wasn't around. And for some reason, they're turning their attention to you," Molly explained.

John pressed his lips together. "Because I'm keeping him alive," he said. Molly pressed her lips together and knit her brow in honest confusion. "Moriarty said that Sherlock died but, because of me, Sherlock wasn't really dead. I was continuing his work."

"Is that why you dropped the case?" Molly asked.

"How much does Lestrade tell you, exactly?" John countered. Molly blushed and turned away. She had been getting excited.

"Sorry," she said. She kept her voice low, like a child admitting things to an angry parent. "Anyway, I do have a point to all this. The case files that were destroyed... I think I actually have copies of all of them."

"Sherlock gave you the copies?" John asked, standing from his stool. Molly nodded.

"One day he just started bringing me tiny files and asking for them to be put in my records, the cabinet only I use. He wanted to keep them somewhere safe but said I shouldn't read them in case I got involved," Molly said, motioning toward a filing cabinet in the back corner. There were several cabinets, but one had an M on the side that designated it as Molly's. The word 'Records' was labeled across the top.

"Records. I told him to make copies. I never knew he actually did it," John mused. He could probably start looking in to the case files again by making visits to the morgue. Moriarty wouldn't know to keep his eyes open where the bodies were kept. Maybe John could continue the search for Sherlock's killer? "Records," he said again, the word pulling at his recent memories. Molly walked over to unlock the files and pull one out for him, a sort of tenseness to her shoulders.

"It's up to you to find the next disc - record six."

"Molly, did Sherlock leave anything else with you?" he asked. "What did he leave in record six?"

The mortician paused, the bottom drawer just pulled open. She looked back at him curiously, like she was stunned and trying to translate what John had said out of Latin.

"Sorry?" she finally came up with and stood up. She closed the drawer with her foot.

"Did Sherlock leave a disc in record six?" John asked. He didn't even know if 'record six' was right, but that's how Sherlock had said it and so that's how John said it.

Molly pressed her hands together and slowly, eventually, nodded. She turned back to the cabinet and opened the middle drawer. After a bit of shuffling through folders, she pulled out a manila envelope and shut the drawer. Just like her nod, she slowly made her way back to him.

"John," she said when she got to him. "How come Sherlock always seems to be here when you're around?" She held the envelope tightly and didn't hold it out. "Moriarty may be right... Whenever you're here, you bring up something about Sherlock. It's like he's still alive and... and playing around."

"Well you're right about that," John said and took hold of the envelope beside Molly's hand. "He's definitely playing. He's sending me on a scavenger hunt and probably grinning in his grave."

"Why you?" Molly asked and pulled the envelope closer to her. She was frowning, a stark difference from before. "Why does he have to keep doing this to you?"

John got the sense that Molly wasn't talking about John. She was mulling over her own emotions. She had cared for Sherlock too. She still had Sherlock's files and record six. John could imagine the jealousy making her cold inside when she realized it was all for John. He could almost read her thoughts - she felt like a storage space.

"I'm sure you were important to him," John assured and put his free hand over hers. Her eyes shot up to look into his. "He trusted you with very important information. You mattered."

"Yeah," Molly agreed and smiled, but it was tinted sour. She pushed the envelope into John's chest and let her fingers fall from it."But not the way he mattered to me."

And something in her tone told John of her continuing jealousy.

\-- -- -- --

John sat in his apartment and spun a CD between his hands. It was the disc from the manila envelope. The case it had come in was sitting on the table beside John, but he was watching the light glint off the CD as it turned it over and over in his fingers, trying not to get his fingerprints on its clean surface.

"Staring at it all day isn't going to help," he scolded himself and sighed. He leaned forward and grabbed his computer, sliding the disc in and letting autoplay do the rest. An audio file loaded from the disc.

"Recording six of eight." Yep. John had found the right one. "Finding a suspect is always the easiest part of a case. Interviewing those closest to the suspect to build your case is one of the first steps in catching a culprit. Unlike most people, I don't have many close people to interview."

"Oh, Sherlock. You have such a limited view of your world," John mused and grabbed himself a bag of crisps to snack on.

"The closest person is Ms Hudson. As you're now living with her, this should be easy. She acts very much as my mother, though I care for her a bit more than my mother. My mother has a weak heart and worries easily. Lying became necessary in my home to keep her from learning of the dangerous pieces of my chosen profession. Ms. Hudson is much easier to deal with, much more rational and accepting of my personality."

"Lestrade is actually old enough to be my father, barely. When we met, I had dropped out of university and begun making ties on the street with homeless people or drug dealers to get an information network going. Unfortunately, this had the nearly immediate effect of a drug addiction that nearly had me working as a street vendor instead of a detective. Lestrade helped me out of the addiction for the most part and has kept an annoyingly close watch on me sense. In case you're worried, no, I don't do drugs anymore. I took up smoking when I dropped the drugs. Found out nicotine does amazing things for brainwork. You're probably disapproving right now."

"Nope, because we already had this discussion the other day," John said, grinning because, for once, he was ahead of Sherlock.... sort of. At least it proved Sherlock wasn't all-knowing.

"At this point, you may be wondering why I don't live with my brother and why Mycroft didn't help me with the drug problem or dropping out of school. The simple truth is because I told him I didn't want to live with him and I wouldn't accept his help on a personal matter unless it was absolutely necessary. This doesn't mean I don't use him to get information for cases. It simply means I keep him out of my personal life and lie to him on a regular basis."

"Some things never change," John mused. It was nothing he didn't already know.

"You already know how I feel about Mycroft," Sherlock said and snatched away John's momentary superiority over him. "You probably don't know why. To keep it simple, I'll tell you Mycroft likes to stick his oversized nose into people's business and then tell other people about things they'd be better off knowing nothing about."

Pause. Clearing of the throat.

"And that's everyone important, I believe. Mother hardly leaves the home and my father doesn't speak to me. I have no relationships. Ah, I suppose there is one more person. I work most closely with her when I work at a nearby hospital. All the other morticians annoy me. Her name is -"

"Molly," John said along with the tape. He smiled a little. He'd been right. Molly mattered to Sherlock. She made it on his list.

"She's a bit mousy and her forehead looks too big when she pulls her hair back and her mouth looks too small without lipstick, but she's a sweet girl and she keeps working with me despite the fact that she usually leaves in tears by the end of a session with me. I haven't been able to figure out the cause, exactly."

"Emotionally retarded, I think," John mused allowed. "Can't tell flirting when it's biting him in the ass."

The Sherlock on the tape started up with something about case work and interviews, but John stopped listening when his phone started going off. He paused the CD and pulled out his mobile.

"Hello," he greeted and dusted his fingers free of crumbs while he held the phone with his shoulder.

"Evening, John," Sherlock's voice sounded. It was a different sound than the clarity of the CD. It was the clarity of a phone. "Anything new happen in the future today?"

"You made Molly cry," John commented off-handedly. "But I understand that's not new."

"Not in the least. I think the only person I haven't made cry is you, at this point."

John chuckled. "Oh, Sherlock," he groaned out. "You make everyone cry."

"Even you?" and he sounded incredulous.

"Yes. Even me."

"... Well... I promise to try harder in the future," Sherlock said.

"To do what?" John asked. Listening to Sherlock talk on a CD or talking with him on the phone was not a question; John would take conversation over recording any day.

"...to make you smile... obviously."


	13. Chapter 13

The service lift to the morgue was always deep and heavy sounding, but the hallway up to it was always silent. The sounds of the hospital were dulled the farther down the hall you walked until it was almost completely soundless by the lift except for the whirr of the air conditioner. John liked listening to the sound of his footsteps as he approached the end. There was something grounding in hearing your steps echo so resolutely. Plus, it was pretty much ingrained in John's head that if someone wanted to sneak up on him, it would be impossible to do in this hall - even if that person was undead or a zombie. Unless they could fly, he'd be able to tell.

John chuckled a little in his head. He could hear Sherlock in his head, telling him he was being silly. Vampires and zombies didn't exist, and humans couldn't fly. Oh, but it was still in John's mind, just like Sherlock's logic.

The lift opened with a soft beep and released him into the lowest layer of the morgue. He stepped out and through a set of doors to where Molly always worked with the bodies. She was examining one right then, checking a puncture wound on the neck. John smiled as he remembered his thoughts on the journey down here. Vampires. Silly.

"Afternoon, Molly," he greeted, slipping his doctor's coat off and hanging it up. He liked leaving that identity behind when he worked on Sherlock's case. It made him feel unbound somehow, not tied to medical thought processes.

"Oh! Doctor Watson," Molly greeted, her smile flickering. Odd.

"Is everything alright, Molly?" John asked, walking over to the filing cabinet. He almost reached down to open it as well, but that's when he noticed the other person in the room.

It would have been fine if the other person had been Lestrade, although John wasn't yet ready to share his copied files. But instead of the police officer, he saw a beautiful woman sitting on a stool in the far corner. Her hair was long, wavy, and dark. Her nails were decorated in a sculpted curve, and her dress went only to her knees. If she wasn't crossing her legs, John was certain he'd be able to see up her skirt. He may have even thought long and hard about her eye color, except he couldn't see them. Her eyes were glued to a phone in her hands, which she seemed to never stop typing on.

"Hello," John greeted. Molly nodded her head in the direction of the woman, and John nodded too. He walked over to the dark beauty and cleared his throat. "Hello," he tried again.

"This is for you," the woman said, not looking up. Instead she simply lifted an envelope from inside her short jacket somewhere and handed it to him.

"Uh? Thank you?" John tried, looking down at the white package. It was written on in a scribbled and yet refined hand, bearing the words 'To be delivered to Dr. John H. Watson on the 5th of May.'

The woman slipped off her stool, barely looking away from her screen. "My employer says to tell you that he will be seeing you shortly," she said and left the room, her heels clacking with every step.

John watched the door until he couldn't see her nor hear her footsteps. That was odd. He looked down at the envelope in his hands, trying to deduce what it was about. Who was that woman's employer? He glanced to Molly, but the mortician shook her head and shrugged her shoulders uselessly. John slowly opened the letter, worried a bit about its contents. He doubted it was anything serious, though. After all, the woman had kept it in her jacket.

Out of the envelope fell a mini flash drive. John held it up in front of him and frowned at it, frowned at the number 4 on the side. A 4GB usb? What could- John paused. Was this the next recording? John looked over to Molly, eyes wide, and then scanned the counters for a computer. There was one, but it appeared to be specifically for work purposes.

"Sorry, Molly. Can I reschedule our usual lunch meeting?" John asked, but it really wasn't a question. He grabbed his coat as he left, pulling it on and dropping the usb into the pocket. He heard Molly agree and say she'd see him around, and then John was in the lift and surrounded by the low rumble.

Recording six hadn't given any clues to the next one. Well, it had, but the only clue Sherlock had said was that the next recording was like an anonymous tip in a case. Anonymous indeed. John had no idea who that woman was and she hadn't given her name. Recordings five and six had been on CDs though. This was a flash drive. As John made his way into the computer lab, he wondered if he should be worried about the change.

The usb went into the computer and instantly loaded its contents - yay technology. John checked to make sure he was alone before he dared to let the sole file on the drive play. It was more than audio this time, and John felt his heart skip a little as he saw Sherlock sitting in front of a computer camera, checking the settings and quality. Finally he sat back and cleared his throat. He was wearing a purple collared shirt open at the top in a casual style. One look at Sherlock in that shirt made John's chest ache and his whole body grow warm.

"Recording seven. Video this time - like to keep it interesting. I actually put on clothes for this," Sherlock said, looking to the side a bit. John closed his eyes for a second, which Sherlock seemed to know he needed because he didn't speak. Sherlock hadn't been dressed before this? Maybe he just meant dressed up?

"Recording six was an introduction to my relationships, but I figure at this point I should expound a bit. Particularly on the point of my dear brother, Mycroft. As I said before, I lie to Mycroft on a semi-daily basis. He likes to keep tabs on me and checks in from time to time personally. He knows I dislike him, but he continues to intrude on my life. Some things I will never understand."

John frowned. Sherlock really didn't know why Mycroft kept coming around? Even John could figure some of these things out. Maybe Sherlock couldn't imagine Mycroft wanting to be around him, loving him? Maybe he couldn't imagine the same of Molly, and that's why he didn't understand her... either of them.

"Mycroft knows," Sherlock began again, lowering his voice bit. "He knows what he did, what he kept doing. It should be no surprise to him that I no longer put any stock in his confidence, in his opinions on any matter." He took a deep breath and continued at a normal volume.

"When I was a child, going to primary school like all normal children do, I quickly learned my brain moved at a rate that far exceeded my classmates. I skipped school several days, knowing I would easily pick up what I missed out on within the first few minutes of the next class, and I told only Mycroft. I thought he was paying off the instructors so they wouldn't tell mother, but then he went and told her himself. I was put into home school within the week and was never allowed to miss a class after that."

That's it? That was the big Sherlock family secret?

"A year later, I bought something for the first time with my own money. It was a doll with blonde hair. Unrealistic in features and mobility, with an apparent case of malnutrition and steroid use. The clothes were blue based and made of a tacky sort of plastic byproduct, rough to the touch and common only in children's toys and second hand Halloween costumes. The doll's expression was its only saving grace. While unmoving, it was... happy. I had that doll for all of two days before Mycroft told father and it was literally ripped from my hands," Sherlock continued, obviously still sore about it. "I was nine at the time."

John ran a hand over his face. Sherlock's mind was amazing. He remembered so much detail about a doll he owned for only two days twenty-six years ago. Nearly three decades of memories, and he remembered that one.

"There were several similar incidents of Mycroft looking out for my wellbeing; taking toys away, keeping me from meeting certain friends or going certain places, and telling mother whenever I didn't follow his ideas for my future like a good little brother. The last straw, though, came in the spring of my eleventh year. I was at a new school that year, beginning my third level of education, and made quick and easy friends with a boy a year my senior named Victor Trevor. Although I should have started skipping levels at that point, I stayed behind like normal students so that I could remain in classes with Victor. He was my very first true friend."

John watched Sherlock straighten up in his seat and check over his shoulder. That was when John noticed the recording was done in 221b. He recognized the entire back wall near the door that Sherlock kept glancing at as though someone was coming up the stairs. Who knew? Maybe someone was. Sherlock was keen like that.

"Anyway, my feelings for Victor were quite strong, and at my twelfth birthday party, I kissed him when no one was looking. I had never trusted feelings of that caliber before, so of course I was anxious. Victor, however friendly, did not reciprocate the emotions, but assured me we would still be friends. The next day, another boy at school told me Victor had explained the situation to him and he was going to tell the school counselor and anyone he ran into along the way. You may be happy, or unhappy, I don't know, to know I ended up breaking the boy's nose. His name was Richard Brooke. I went to the person I thought I could trust to help me keep the secret, both secrets. Mycroft assured me he would do what was best for me... so he told my mother and father. My mother suffered a heart attack, poor woman, and my father pulled me from school again. I was forbidden from visiting Victor in his Norfolk estate and never saw Richard Brooke again... although I did read that the entire Brooke family was in a car accident a few years later, so that would suggest he's dead. I never kept up with either of the boys. Mycroft made sure of that," Sherlock said, voice low and full of old spite. The anger surprised John. He'd never heard it before in Sherlock's voice.

"I never trusted Mycroft with the truth of matters after that. I had twelve years of experience working against him, and as of today he has done nothing to merit regaining that trust. Especially with that spy working for him - Anthea, who does nothing but text him constant updates on everything she sees or hears around her like his own personal robot," Sherlock complained.

"Oh. Is that her name?" John asked, almost forgetting this was a video and not a video call. When he spoke he noticed the quiet of the room and covered his mouth a bit, glad no one had been around to hear it.

"Yes. I'm sure Mycroft will have her deliver this instead of him. He's never been one to get his hands dirty with anything, even delivery work," Sherlock said and John really wanted to know how Sherlock became psychic.

This message was left with Mycroft? But Anthea had dropped it off. Did that mean Mycroft was here somewhere? Or had he sent her alone? John wondered if Mycroft listened to this message before giving it to him. If Mycroft hadn't heard this yet, John would probably give it to him. The man seemed desperate to know where he'd gone wrong.

"The truth about Mycroft that you must understand, John, is that he acts like an arrogant, government pencil shredder, but he actually cares a bit too much. He taught me how to deal with people as I grew up, and while the Holmes family may not be good in public, he definitely taught me to survive with the upper class idiots our family associates with. I know how to treat people to gain authority over them. He taught me a lot, and I respect his power.... but I do not trust him when he is right in front of me, much less when he is out of my sight."

Sherlock shifted again, glancing almost imperceptibly to the side and then sighed in annoyance.

"John, I envy you and your normal sibling relationships. It must be so boring but so.... safe. You don't talk much about your sister. I don't want you becoming a hermit. Call her. Have a nice.... chat or something. Don't talk to me again until you do," he said, looking seriously at the camera when he said that. Then he nodded curtly. "End of recording seven."

Sherlock's hand twitched near the bottom of the screen and the video ended. John found himself grinning to himself; not a huge smile but one that comes from remembering a fond memory. He ran his hand over his mouth and tried to wipe the smile off his face. In a strangely content state, he reached forward and closed the video player, ejected the usb, and pulled it out of the computer. John ran his thumb over the device and then slid it into his pocket as he pushed out of his seat.

Anthea had delivered the message, but John doubted Mycroft would ever stay far away if he knew about this message. Mycroft had definitely watched this. John wouldn't doubt Mycroft had been on the stairs listening to it being recorded. He also wouldn't doubt that Mycroft was in the building right now.

Turning the corner into the receiving bay for the E.R., John stopped walking and looked toward the double doors on his left. The hall beyond the doors looked bright but vacant, totally empty save for one tall figure. John shifted his coat and stepped through the doors, trying to seem taller than he was so he could compare to the man standing in the hall. The corridor was silent, and the rush of the hospital through the door threw that into stark contrast. John took only a few steps into the area before the door shut and he stopped where he was, halfway between the door and Mycroft.

"That's the one thing Sherlock never liked about London.... the rain," the older Holmes said, looking out the windows.

"He picked the wrong place to live," John replied, slipping his hands into his coat pockets. He waited a moment to see if Mycroft would reply and received only a frowning stare out the window. "Did you watch the video?"

"I did. He never told me not to; just said I was to deliver it at a specific time and date. Not that it mattered, of course," Mycroft said. "I knew everything it held regardless."

"You were on the stairs." It wasn't a question. John knew it was true. Sherlock wouldn't keep looking over his shoulder without a reason, and he wouldn't be so calm about it if it wasn't someone he knew. Mycroft made an affirmative sound in his throat and tapped his umbrella on the ground. "No cane?" John asked.

"The umbrella is less conspicuous and much more useful in British weather," the older man explained. "You understand."

"I understand that you loved your brother so much that his death caused you to have a twitch in your right knee that causes you pain and requires you to limp and use a cane," John explained.

"I limp because I've hit my leg one too many times on the metal coffee table in my office," Mycroft said, denying the claim.

"Maybe if you admit out loud that you have a psychosomatic limp due to the death of your brother and not because of blunt force trauma, it might go away." John cleared his throat then and held his hands behind his back.

Mycroft Holmes looked at John Watson then, a distant and disinterested glaze over his eyes, as though he wasn't seeing John as someone worthy to look at. John met his gaze with one he hoped conveyed determination and the idea that John knew he was right and wouldn't back down. After a moment, Mycroft looked back to the rain slipping down the glass in front of him.

"All lives end," he said.

"Yeah, but this was your brother. This wasn't just some random person on the street. He was family. You loved him," John pointed out.

"All hearts are broken," Mycroft said as an answer. He lowered his gaze to his hand on the handle of his umbrella. "Caring... is not an advantage."

"The hell it isn't," John grunted out. "You wouldn't be checking with me about Sherlock every other day if you didn't think knowing his days would give you an advantage.... over what or who, I don't know, but that doesn't matter. Caring brings people together."

"Caring causes irrational emotions," Mycroft almost snapped and the tension in his words made John hesitate. Mycroft took a silent, slow breath and continued in a calm tone and pace. "Caring causes normally logical people to act stupidly and selfishly. Caring tears people apart. Sherlock knew that, and it is something you should get used to."

"I would rather live on this side of the fence, thanks. It makes life much less miserable," John said, crossing his arms in front of him now.

"Do you love my brother?" Mycroft asked suddenly, finally turning to face John.

"What?" John asked, not expecting the question. Love Sherlock? Love the sound of his violin and his deep voice and his quick texts and his amazing brain? Love the way he's talking over a time jump? or love the way he died before John ever got to officially meet him?

"You see? You feel the tension build in your chest, and you cannot explain why. It causes you grief, Doctor Watson. Caring does not bring happiness or joy. Caring simply opens the heart to weapons that can injure it."

"You're a machine," John decided, awed by his own inner deduction. Mycroft looked at him curiously, and John shook his head. "You're not human at all. You're a bloody machine," John said again and turned his back on the older Holmes. With that, he left the hallway and the man in dark clothes watching the rain.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

John was sure he should feel bad about how much time he spent on the phone, but he didn't. He found himself, more and more often, lounging at home when he got off work and just talking on the phone for hours. Sometimes the conversations were lively and animated. Sherlock would discuss a case he was working on, and John would listen and provide input when needed or when he thought Sherlock had overlooked something. Sometimes they argued because Sherlock called John names or because John didn't approve of what Sherlock said or was doing to those around him. Sometimes Sherlock played the violin. Sometimes he composed. Sometimes they didn't talk at all. The phones would sit on tables or arm rests and be completely silent while John pulled up a book to read or made dinner and Sherlock did who-knows-what.

The quiet calls weren't a problem. They were special because both men seemed to be completely fine leaving their phones connected across time even when they had nothing in particular to say. It was strangely intimate, being able to hear every time Sherlock sneezed, coughed, cleared his throat, growled, or any of the abundant noises that came from his throat while he worked, and the same applied to Sherlock as he listened to John move about.

After his talk with Mycroft, John texted the older brother less but thought about the younger brother more. John let silent phone calls go on longer and would prompt Sherlock to discuss more about his work to delay hanging up the phone.

"Do you love my brother?" 

What kind of man asks that kind of question like that? As though it didn't matter what the answer was, as though John didn't matter, wasn't important or worthy? It was rude. It was almost cruel. It kept John from being able to read during the silent calls.

"Sherlock," he said one day just as Sherlock had been about to change a silent call into a violin session.

"Yes, John?" Sherlock asked. He wasn't next to the phone.

John closed his book and set it aside. "It's May. You've started building the case files I'm working with, haven't you?"

"Yes. A double murder and an arson attack," Sherlock confirmed. "I already solved those cases. The files are still with me, though. I knew they were connected by this Moriarty. Alas I still cannot find any information about him. The man is a ghost."

"Victor Trevor," John interrupted. Sherlock cut off his rant and did not start back up. "May 12th. Victor Trevor."

Victor Trevor, the first love of Sherlock Holmes. The man who got away because he was straight. The man who signified the break between the Holmes brothers. John heard Sherlock drag his bow across the strings of his violin, slowly and not to any specific tune.

"Yes. Two weeks ago. Double homicide," he said, voice flat as though he had not had a case in days and was about to start shouting.

"He and his wife were murdered, Sherlock," John clarified. "You knew them both. The same for the other one, Sebastian Wilkes - February 25th. House fire. You went to school with both of them."

"Richard Brooke as well," Sherlock spoke, near the phone now but still quiet. "I found him. He was alive after his family died in a car accident. He died last month. Another house fire."

"Everyone attached to this case who has died since.... since I started working on it has been someone you put away for murder. Everyone who they killed before going to prison was someone you knew.. Am I right? Except Jasmine Sheffield." 

"I met her yesterday morning," Sherlock corrected. "She wasn't always a Sheffield. Before her second marriage, she was Jasmine Powers. She was the mother of a boy, Carl, murdered during my time at university. It was my very first serious case. When I met her yesterday, I recognized her instantly. That was when I made the same connection you are making now."

"Moriarty is killing off people around you, people you know." John said it with such clarity and assuredness that he was certain that if it had not been already true, he would have made it so with his words.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Sherlock murmured. He could be heard sighing heavily and running a hand over his face. John could almost see him doing it. "I hope he takes that into consideration," Sherlock murmured next.

"Takes what into consideration?" John asked. "What are you afraid of?"

Sherlock took a moment to think on his own and then he let out a short breath. "I'm hoping he doesn't know who I'm talking to on the phone all the time.... and if he does find out, I hope he understands you aren't technically 'around' me."

"Come now, Sherlock. Don't you think he would have killed me by now if that was his plan?" John asked. "All he's done to me is scare me."

"I don't want him to take our fight too seriously and drag it out. I don't want it to bleed into your time," Sherlock said, almost ignoring John.

"Sherlock-," John tried, but the other man cut him off.

"I don't want you to be collateral damage, John. Can't you understand?" he asked, rushed and anxious. John's mouth snapped shut, and for several moments they were both silent. The only sound over the call was Sherlock's sudden heavy breathing.

John heard the soft sounds of Sherlock rummaging around for something and seemingly unable to find it. He could still hear Sherlock's laborious breaths through all of it, like he was an asthmatic who couldn't find his inhaler. John frowned and closed his eyes.

"Sherlock," he said just as the rummaging ceased. "I'm still here." Put down the cigarettes, he thought. "I'm not going to die on you." Not like Sherlock would. "Sherlock?"

John strained his ear to pick up any sound the phone would give. He heard the click of something metallic being set on something wooden. Sherlock had put down the lighter. When Sherlock's voice spoke up again, John could tell Sherlock hadn't smoked anything. His voice sounded teasing and a little strained.

"You're going to be the death of me, Doctor," he said, a half laugh coming from his throat. He took a slow, deep breath and held it. After a full thirty seconds, he let it out just as slowly. "There. I crushed the cigarette. Didn't even sniff it." And John smiled at the annoyance he heard.

"I'm so proud," John said back, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't teasing... but he was being honest too. "Don't worry. Everything turns out alright in the end."

"You say that as though you read it in a book," Sherlock said with a sneer and sniffed, but he seemed much calmer now.

"I'm in the future. How do you know I didn't?"

"Touche, Doctor. Touche."

John chuckled and felt his heart warm. He would miss this banter.  
\-- -- -- -- -- -- --

Mmm. He had to admit. This didn't happen every day... especially not in John Watson's flat.

"Right," was the first thing he could think to say. "C-Can I help you?"

He dropped his shopping bag on the nearby table and looked at his peculiar visitor. It was a woman of surprising beauty. She was sitting in his chair, legs crossed and poised like a queen. She had no fear in her posture or eyes. Only her crossed legs showed she had a sense of decency, for beyond her glistening earrings, she wore no clothes. She smiled coyly at John.

"Dr. Watson," she greeted. She held out her hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you at last. Well, when I say 'meet you', I mean in person, of course. I've seen surveillance of you and a few snap shots over the last year. It was sort of my job. Sort of. Do you like my battle dress?"  
"I'm sorry. Have I - Have I missed something?" John asked, glancing around the rest of his flat that was visible and checking for other people. As far as he could tell, they were alone. What did she mean 'battle dress'? She wasn't wearing anything.

The woman just grinned broader. "Sherlock sent me with the finest regards. I was meant to come just before your birthday, but I figured why not a month early? I'd stand to shake your hand, but he told me you were a bit... sensitive." She raised her eyebrows suggestively on the last word.

John cleared his throat. "Obviously didn't really bother you much," he said, shuffling forward awkwardly to take her hand. He held it just long enough to shake and then released it.

"Irene," the woman finally said. She leaned over toward John, her arms now covering her chest. "Irene Adler. Surely Sherlock has spoken of me before."

Her tone was smooth and milky, like a voice in a commercial trying to get John to buy chocolates or a sultry temptress to buy porn. He wasn't sure which. He took a seat on the arm of his couch, keeping a wary eye on her.

"Nope. I don't think he has. I'm sure he would have warned me." John looked away from her again, his cheeks probably burning. "You have a disc or something for me?"

"Oh. Straight to the point. He's got you pinned, lover boy," Irene cooed. She stood, probably knowing John would look further away, and moved over to the coffee table. She lifted a long coat off it, which had been folded neatly before, and put it on. John let out a sigh of relief and look her dead on. "He gave me a gift for you, yes. But you'll have to beat me to get it."

"Excuse me?" John asked. He put his hands on his knees and stared her down. Something about her coat seemed wrong. It wasn't made for her. John couldn't imagine her running around town wearing only that. She seemed much classier.

"I don't play fair like Sherlock," Irene explained. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from the coat pocket and lit one up. She then proceeded to not listen to John's protests about smoking in his house. "You play my game, Doctor, or you don't get the prize. It's as simple as that. Yes or no?"

"Sherlock wouldn't like-," John tried, not seriously trusting Irene at all. He didn't even completely trust that to be her name. But before he could finish his sentence, she'd snapped her lighter shut and set a testy glare on him.

"It doesn't matter what Sherlock would like or not. He's dead. It's my rules now, and I like them the way they are. Do you want the damn disc or not?" she asked.

Her sensual attitude was gone, replaced only with distaste. Her words bit down when she said 'dead', and it didn't take a doctor to realize her anger stemmed from Sherlock's passing and not from anything John had done. John cleared his throat and motioned for her to continue. Like an appeased feline, she fell back into her coy grin and sat on the edge of the table, facing John.

"I knew Sherlock for four years before he died. You knew him for one. If you can name something about him that even I don't know, you win. But I warn you now, I know things about him even he doesn't know. Poor baby." The woman was damn near purring.

"Sherlock plays the violin," John began. Irene snorted and rolled her eyes. John glared. "But he never wanted to play for profit."

"Please. He never does anything for profit. He only accepts money because he knows it's necessary to pay Ms. Hudson and buy a few heads of lettuce," Irene countered. "You'll have to do much better than that."

"Sherlock doesn't like lettuce," John shot back.

"True, but he eats it because Ms. Hudson told him he needed more green in his diet," Irene explained easily.

"How did you say you knew Sherlock?" John asked. She made him uncomfortable, made his collar itch and his stomach churn and his chest pound. With anyone else, he would have thought he was attracted to her, but this was different. This was uncomfortable.

"I was one of his cases. I was the illegal," Irene said, wiggling her fingers at the word. "He caught me, and he let me go. We played a bit of cat and mouse and got very.... very close. Now you're stalling."

"Am not," John said and hated how childish he sounded. That's what this was. It was jealousy, like a child who got cheated out of cookies. "Fine. Sherlock's favorite color is purple, but he only owns one purple piece of clothing."

"A button up shirt that makes him look like dessert."

"He's a master of his own personal fighting style-"

"Yes. I saw him take out a Turkish mercenary with it."

"-but he's still rubbish at fighting because he doesn't eat properly and he never exercises."

"Sherlock didn't tell you that. You're assuming based on your profession."

"Sherlock likes men."

"Oooh, clever one. Yes. He claims to be asexual, but he's really just too nervous about physicality. You should have seen his face the first time I showed up in this little outfit." Irene winked, and John's mouth went a little dry. He glanced at the cigarette in her fingers and down to the pocket where the rest of the box sat.

"That's Sherlock's coat," he said, and he didn't care that it wasn't something she didn't know. He suddenly needed to know if it was true. The outfit she meant was her wearing nothing. That coat wasn't included in her wardrobe or she would have claimed it in her speech. It wasn't hers, but... the cigarettes in the pocket. The lighter she used looked just like the one Sherlock had described to him.

Irene's face fell from its foxy grin and she looked down at her only garment. She tapped her cigarette into a small bowl she'd stolen from John's cabinets. He recognized it, but he hadn't left it there. Irene took her eyes from John for the first time since he'd walked into the room, and looked uneasy to boot.

"I stole it," she said. "These are his cigarettes too. Or, they're the same brand. The man loved his nicotine."

"He stopped smoking," John corrected, not doubting the truth of that statement at all. Irene laughed sourly.

"That he did. Because of you, but you knew that already," and she sounded a bit sour at John too. "He gave up his bad habits because you told him to. He'd do anything you asked him to. He did everything for you. Gave you everything."

"No. Sherlock only ever did things for himself," John said, shaking his head. Irene dropped her cigarette, stood, and slapped John across the face in one fluid motion.

"See?" she asked. "You didn't really know him at all."

John held his stinging face as Irene walked over to a small bag behind the door. She took the coat off and hung it on the door and pulled out a set of clothes from the bag. John kept his head turned away, gently rubbing his sore cheek and giving her privacy. They didn't speak the whole time, but John didn't know what to say anyway. This was another heart broken by Sherlock Holmes, the man who didn't know how much he meant to every person he came across.

"Some special boyfriend you were," Irene murmured, pulling on the last bit of clothing, a short black jacket. Her shirt was white and she had black denim trousers. It was like an outfit she'd grabbed at random, not really thinking. "Never came to visit him. Didn't even come to the funeral."

"I didn't know," John began, trying to explain. Irene scoffed.

"Hardly. Mycroft sent the announcements out to everyone Sherlock so much as bumped into. I doubt he would've missed you - the famous John Watson. Then again, maybe you weren't welcome," she said, acid creeping into her tone.

"He isn't dead, Irene," John said, forcefully. Irene pause with her hand on Sherlock's coat, ready to pull it off the door. "Maybe he is for you, but I still talk to him every day. Neither of us can explain it, but he still calls me and sends me texts throughout the day. He's a year behind me and still solving cases, and I'm still getting to know him. We're living a year apart, as crazy as that sounds. When I found out he was dead... I'm still going to try to save him."

Irene's face was a mixture of shock, disbelief, and annoyance, but there was another emotion trying to make room for itself. That emotion was hope. She slowly took Sherlock's coat off the door and laid it over her arm.

"Well if that were true, Doctor, you would have earned all I have to give and more. Unfortunately-," but a noise stopped Ms. Adler's conclusion. It was John's phone going off, sending a low beeping noise through the flat.

Irene stared at him, almost daring him to answer it with her eyes. John pulled the phone from his pocket and clicked it on. It was a text, just as he'd known it would be, and it was from Sherlock, something else John had expected.

"Bloody bored, John. No cases, and it's raining. Sherlock," John read off.

Irene nearly clawed John with her nails as she snatched the phone from him. She stared at the message, her lips locked into a line. She pressed them even closer together as the phone went off again. Another message. Probably some crack at Lestrade. Sherlock liked to pick at Lestrade when he was bored.

Irene half threw the phone back at John after she read it. Just as he'd guessed, it said Lestrade was probably falling apart at the joints because of the amount of rain in London and his old age. Irene placed a hand gently over her mouth and stared at the floor.

"It isn't possible," she murmured.

"That's what Sherlock said," John said. Irene snapped her gaze to him.

"Does he know?" she asked. "Have you told him he's...?"

"No. Mycroft told me not to," John answered, shaking his head.

"Well screw Mycroft. How are you going to save him if you don't tell him?" Irene snapped, but she didn't seem angry at John anymore.

"That's what I said," John agreed, nodding. "And I will. I'll tell him. But not yet. I don't want him to over think it."

"I'd tell him now," Irene said. She knelt down next to John, and gave him a look he couldn't quite read. Was it pity? "I'd tell him every day, whenever I could."

"Are we still talking about his death?" John asked. "I can't really... you know, read you."

She smiled then and rose slowly to her feet. Her lip touched his cheek in a soft kiss and then she sighed. "That's almost what Sherlock told me," she said. "Anyway, I admit defeat, Doctor Watson."

Irene held Sherlock's coat out for him to take. It was softer than he expected, and he tried to push it back into her arms, but she wouldn't have it.

"He would want you to have it, not just the recording," she explained. "Just... tell him for me, alright? The world still needs him. He should give thanks for what he has and stay home."

"Irene," John started but she put a finger to his lips. John frowned and fished in the pockets of the jacket. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes and tossed them to her. "I'm sorry."

"Save him for me, Doctor, and there will be nothing to apologize for. Well... except maybe for stealing his heart." John knew he was okay with her because that had been a definite tease, and she winked.

Tapping the cigarettes against her hand, she gave him one last smile and nodded. Then she was out the door and down the stairs without a proper goodbye. John nodded to the empty space she let behind and slid onto the seat of the couch. He fished around in the pockets and realized Irene had left the lighter too. The cool metal was somehow just as grounding as the coat.

From the back pocket, he drew another CD, and he had an inkling he knew what it would be about: Irene Adler. Sherlock had to explain how someone as memorable as that woman hadn't been on his recording about relationships.

"Ah, and part of me doesn't really want to know," he mused aloud, hand stroking the fabric of the coat in his lap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Preview, Chapter 15:
> 
> "I was called in to deal with a case where the perpetrator was already known. It was a woman... THE Woman," Sherlock explained. "I decided this morning that you needed to know this part of my life in order to have a complete understanding of me."
> 
> "Oh God," John sighed out and covered his mouth. "I don't want to hear this."
> 
> "John-," Sherlock tried, but John spoke right over him.
> 
> "It's not trivial, Sherlock!"
> 
> When Sherlock figured out the phone mystery, what else would John have to offer in the way of conundrums? And that's when he had the most brilliant of brilliant ideas - an idea that would keep Sherlock around for as long a time as they had remaining.
> 
> "Understand, it is about the only subject on which I am, and I hate the word, shy about. It isn't fear. I've only ever been afraid of one thing since my mother died, and it certainly isn't this."


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did the math based on my notes for the story, and this story should come out to 22 chapters. The end is in sight.

John treated the fourth disc he'd received like a movie. He brewed himself some fresh tea and grabbed a bag of barbecue crisps before settling down in front of his computer at his desk. The disc whirred to life as John popped the first crisp in his mouth. He took a second to really appreciate the flavor before he clicked for the disc to play. He was only mildly disappointed when it was audio and not video.

"Recording 2," Sherlock started and then paused. John frowned. Five, Six, Seven, and now Two? "There is always a plan to any murder or robbery or true crime. Well, at least any crime performed by someone with a steady mind. We won't include every mental disorder in this idea. But most people who organize crime or commit the crime plan their actions in advanced, even if only by an hour or a couple of minutes. I will record later a list of relationships, but there is one relationship even a good detective wouldn't find out in the beginning of a case involving me. This relationship is... different, and the woman involved was perhaps the best at planning the games she played."

John frowned and shoved a handful of crisps in his mouth to stop himself from frowning. Hearing Sherlock compliment Irene was annoying, and Sherlock hadn't even confirmed who he was talking about yet.

"I received a case when I was thirty-two... just about four years ago. Oh, right. I had a birthday since you asked me. I'm thirty-six now. If this disc was delivered properly, it should be about your fortieth birthday. Unfortunately, I don't trust this to be delivered on time, so I'm probably too early. Happy Birthday, if you like hearing that sort of thing.... Right, back to the story. I was called in to deal with a case where the perpetrator was already known. It was a woman... THE Woman," Sherlock explained.

"The Woman?" John asked. He frowned deeply despite his best tries. Irene was sounding more and more important to Sherlock by the second.

"It was how she was known in her work, you see. She had her own website for her type of business. Her real name is Irene Adler. I caught her in possession of some highly classified information, something worthy of bringing her to the law for. She tricked me, a smooth talking devil, and I let her go. Of course, I kept the information she'd stolen, so it wasn't a complete failure."

"I kept an eye out for her in the following months. She'd gotten hold of my cell number and took to messaging me the way most people update their Twitter accounts. After two more cases involving her, she invited me out to drinks. I declined, but then she showed up at my flat with an old bottle of scotch, and she wouldn't let me decline. We talked while we drank. Well, she did most of the talking. After the bottle was drained, she showed me her self-entitled 'battle dress'... It was the first time," Sherlock said and trailed off into thoughtful silence.

"Oh God," John sighed out and covered his mouth. "I don't want to hear this." His crisps had slipped onto the floor, forgotten.

"Understand, it is about the only subject on which I am, and I hate the word, shy about. Mycroft tells me I'm scared of it. I dare say Miss Adler believes it as well. It isn't fear. I've only ever been afraid of one thing since my mother died, and it certainly isn't sex," Sherlock continued.

"Please, Sherlock. Please stop," John whined, wanting to stop the recording but driven on by a sick need to know. It was like watching a car crash. He couldn't stop watching to see what happened.

"She... took a piece of me with her when she left that night, a piece of me that I can never regain... and she stole my coat. She left me on the floor, drunken and dizzy." Sherlock paused, took a deep breath, and continued "I won't lie to you, John. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't want it. Every time she touched my face, or any part of me, honestly, I wanted to pull away, but she had me trapped in my own home. I suspect there was more than scotch in my cup as well. My senses were terrifyingly numbed. Before I leave you with some ambiguous ramble, I will make myself clear no matter how... uncomfortable the topic may make me. Irene Adler was my first and only sexual experience."

"Oh God, he said it," John exclaimed, covering his eyes as though the truth had been a photographed handed to him and he didn't want to see it anymore.

"And as much as it may be defined as rape, I never begrudged her it. I have never told anyone before this moment, and part of me hates that you won't even hear it for another year. I don't know if Irene will listen to this before she hands it over, but if she does, it is nothing I have not already told her. She is, as she put it, the woman who beat me. She was, and remains, a puzzle I can't solve except to the extent that I know she loves me. It is the only reason she has tried to sweet talk me and kept in contact since that evening. I think she's been spending her time trying to apologize. I suppose I should feel honored that she cares about such trivialities," Sherlock murmured.

"Tri-Trivialities?" John gasped. "You call that- Sherlock!"

"I have known her for four years, two of which have had very little contact. She doesn't even text me much anymore. She is a powerful, beautiful, dangerous woman. She is The Woman, the woman who bested me, who beat me and didn't tell a soul. She deserves respect for that notion. In her defense, she could have destroyed me, but she chose not to." Sherlock was silent for a moment and then cleared his throat.

"I hope you will not hold this information against Miss Adler or against myself. I decided this morning, when I came up with the idea of these recordings, that you needed to know this part of my life in order to have a complete understanding of me. What happened is in the past, but it made me secure about certain portions of myself. While I shall never trust Irene Adler with any substance I'm going to ingest anymore, I still count her as a valuable ally. Again, I hope this does not change your opinion of me. I admit, my conversations with you may be the only thing in my boring life that I look forward to these days." Again, Sherlock went silent. And then abruptly, he said, "End Recording Two."

The sound cut off, but John was already dialing Sherlock on his phone. It took only a two rings before Sherlock picked up. By then, John was pacing.

"Day off?" is how Sherlock answered the phone.

"Trivialities?" John snapped.

"Oh."

"It's not trivial, Sherlock!" and John couldn't help how his voice rose. "That woman, she-if I had known that before she left.. I would have-! She acted like she owned you! She treated me like some second-class citizen who didn't deserve to know you, and yet she's the one who assaulted you! I'll tell you one thing- If I had known what I know now, our conversation would have gone radically different!"

"John-," Sherlock tried, but John spoke right over him.

"Especially knowing about her 'battle dress'! I mean, it would be one thing if she used it on you alone, but to come into my house, in nothing but a coat - Your Coat - and use the same line of a 'battle dress', to use it because she knew it would catch me off-guard, because she used it on you- What kind of woman does that?" John asked.

"She met you with her battle dress?" Sherlock asked, and his voice was so stony and flat that it blindsided John and pulled him from his rant. "Did she-"

"No," John spoke quickly. "She didn't touch me."

"... Good."

"Well she did slap me," John corrected, voice a bit lighter. "But she'd covered up by that point."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Sherlock asked.

"Thought it might," John answered. "But don't worry. She left me intact."

"Good to hear. I need my Doctor in one piece." Sherlock let out a long breath that John mimicked. "You're the only one I trust."

"But I haven't done anything as your physician." John pressed his lips together. He stepped on something that crunched and realized he'd crushed his crisps. Shit. He reached down to pull the bag off the floor.

"You have done more for me than any physician I've ever met in person, John. Don't belittle yourself," Sherlock said. "Without you, I'd still be smoking. That is more than most people can brag."

"Most people," John muttered and looked out his windows. "How dull." Next to Sherlock and the life John had now, he couldn't imagine going back to 'normal' life. He was beginning to understand Sherlock's view of the world.

Then Sherlock chuckled and broke all tension in John's spine. "Undoubtedly."  
\-- -- -- --

It was a brilliant idea. John had to say, it was just bloody brilliant. He'd been left to his own thoughts about The Woman for about a week, and he'd mulled over his issues about her during every spare moment of thought that he had. It was a natural deviation from his usual constant thoughts about Sherlock, but it was even more of a puzzle for him. The question John had about her was 'why does Sherlock find her so interesting?' and 'what makes me put up with her?' And the answer he found after the whole week was surprisingly simple.

Sherlock couldn't solve her. She was a riddle with an elusive answer.

So John had started thinking some more, this time about how he could compete with such a riddle. When Sherlock figured out the phone mystery, what else would John have to offer in the way of conundrums? He wanted to be mysterious for Sherlock, wanted to be a source of entertainment and interest. It may be childish, but he wanted more of Sherlock's thoughts and heart than That Woman. It was his main goal these days. He would need to break himself of the need, of the addiction someday... but not today.

And that's when he had the most brilliant of brilliant ideas - an idea that would keep Sherlock around for as long a time as they had remaining.

"I have a riddle for you," John said one day when Sherlock had stopped composing on his violin and had gone to at least make some tea to appease John's request that he not starve to death.

"Oh? Is it a good one? I used to read riddle books when I was a child. Perhaps I've already heard it," Sherlock suggested and something clattered off the counter and rolled along the floor. Sherlock's annoyed growling was the only suggestion John had that the act was not planned.

"I came up with this one on my own, so you wouldn't have read it anywhere," John said. "I figured if you're putting me on a scavenger hunt, I can give you a game as well."

"Alright," Sherlock grunted, lifting whatever heavy item had fallen and setting it somewhere it undoubtedly didn't belong. "What is your riddle?"

"What has two heads, two hearts, eight limbs, and is colored red and blue?" John asked. "Feel free to take your time guessing."

"Two heads...," Sherlock murmured, moving things around in his kitchen. He wasn't being very careful, and pots and pans continued to smash together. John nearly winced. He wished he could jump through the phone and clean Sherlock's apartment for him. "Is it some sort of science fiction monster?"

"Nope." John grabbed himself an apple from his fridge.

"Some demented form of Frankenstein's Monster?"

"Try again."

"I'll need to think on it," Sherlock said.

"Like I said, take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere," John answered and took the first big bite out of his yellow fruits. He smile was devious and gleeful. This was such a brilliant idea. This riddle was the best riddle in the history of riddles, and even Sherlock Holmes wasn't going to figure it out with ease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Preview, Chapter 16:
> 
> Angelo was also the first person Sherlock had known to not look at John with pity in their eyes upon their first meeting. He lead John to the nearby window seat. "There's a candle, nice and romantic. Sherlock said I didn't have to, but it's not often Sherlock has a date."
> 
> So they argued about food, and Sherlock mentioned his childhood; the way his mother used to take him and Mycroft to restaurants around whatever estate they were staying at that week while his father worked.
> 
> "Is that right? Sherlock Holmes just asked me out on a date?" John teased.
> 
> "Don't be silly, John," Sherlock scolded gently. "I asked you two weeks ago."
> 
> For all his pomp and circumstance, all his airs and graces, Sherlock was very much the same as anyone else. He noticed more things, retained more information, but under it all, he was still human.


	16. Chapter 16

Damn it all. John couldn't deny Sherlock anything, could he? He'd like to think he'd fought hard with this one, given Sherlock something to really try with. But the ending truth was simple. John did everything for Sherlock, just as Irene claimed Sherlock did everything for John.

Two weeks ago, Sherlock had sent no less than four texts throughout the day reminding John to take off work for his birthday. One came at breakfast, one just before John left for his shift, one just after lunch, and one before supper. While each one after the first was met by John with minor annoyance, he didn't actually request the day off until after he took his supper break, so they all had a point anyway. Sherlock didn't send anymore even though John never told him he'd finally done as asked.

Then there was the week before, where Sherlock told him to dress nice on his birthday. There was no need for a tux, but if he could just wear some nice slacks and a business casual shirt at least then everything would be great. John visited Harriet to get some nicer clothes. After the fire, he'd been given a nice amount of money to rebuild what he'd lost, but he hadn't bought much. Two weeks' worth of clothing. Maybe a little less. He wore all of it to work, but he suspected Sherlock wanted something else.

Harriet pulled out a box of John's things that hadn't been transported to London during the move. He found an outfit that was nicer than what he wore around the hospital, which wasn't entirely hard. He liked to wear plain, short-sleeved shirts under sweaters at work. So, dodging the fifty questions by Harriet and the five by Clara and guarding the box of clothing carefully, John made his way home with Sherlock's second request.

The third order was for John to sleep in on his birthday and do whatever he wanted to do for the entire day. John had to admit that it was a bit of a letdown. What was the outfit for if he was meant to laze about all day? Still, he did as told and tried not to do anything serious. He wanted to go work on the Moriarty case with Molly, though he knew he was making slow, slow progress on that front. He wasn't Sherlock. He didn't know what to do. Moriarty was killing people Sherlock knew, assumingly to get at Sherlock, but Sherlock was dead by Moriarty's own hand and yet he was still picking fights with Sherlock, and why was he doing that? Who was this guy?

No.

No, not today. Sherlock said not today. So John sat down to watch crap telly, but he rioted when he couldn't find anything on but reality shows and cop dramas. That's when he turned to Miss Hudson. He helped her replace some lights and fixed a loose door before she stopped him to make him some tea and biscuits. After that, they played a few games of cards while they discussed John's previous birthdays and Miss Hudson swore to get him a gift.

"Oh you! You should have told me it was coming! I would have had something prepared!" she scolded.

"It's really alright, Miss Hudson. I don't need anything," John tried.

"If that isn't the biggest lie I've heard all year, I don't know what is. Listen here, John Watson. You lost your entire life in a burnt flat. This should be the best birthday of your life, people giving you things and all. Now don't argue. I'm going to get you something by the end of the week," she'd said, and he couldn't talk her out of it.

She made comments about clothes and furniture and home decorations and so many things that John had no idea what to expect as a birthday gift. He just hoped she didn't spend too much money on it.

It was around eight pm when Sherlock called. John felt his chest burn in a way that told him he was too deep, and Mycroft's disapproving glances flashed in his mind, but he ignore it all and picked up the call.

"Good evening," Sherlock said before John could speak.

"Good evening," John mimicked. "So am I going somewhere tonight? Because I got all dressed up just now. I realized that if you wanted me lazy during the day, the outfit must be for tonight. Where am I going?"

"Mmm. Not as dumb as the rest," Sherlock complimented. "You're much smarter than Mycroft gives you credit for. I bet you already know..." He trailed off in thought, as he did just a bit too often.

"Know?" John prodded. Sherlock made a negative noise.

"No, John, you'll just have to wait and see," he said in that oddly monotonous manner of his that seemed to say too much. "Since you're dressed, that speeds things up. Time to head out, John. You have a dinner date."

"With you?" John asked, heading down the stairs and out the door. Miss Hudson was nowhere in sight. Good, no questions.

"In a sense," Sherlock said, and there was a smile in his voice.

"Is that right? Sherlock Holmes just asked me out on a date?" John teased.

"Don't be silly, John," Sherlock scolded gently. "I asked you two weeks ago."

John laughed to himself, and Sherlock let him finish before directing which direction he walked. The restaurant was close, he said, a very short walk. As he gave his first turn, John heard him say goodbye to Miss Hudson and pursed his lips.

"Are you heading out as well?" he asked.

"Naturally. You think I'll be sitting at home during our dinner?" Sherlock retorted.

"Depends. Do you actually plan on eating with me?" John asked.

"... It's your birthday," Sherlock said. "You decide whether I eat or not."

"Wow." John let out a slow breath. Sherlock was giving up control for the night... sort of - control of his diet, anyway. "In that case, yes. Yes, you're definitely eating."

Sherlock was kind enough not to point out that he undoubtedly already knew that was what John was going to decide. Instead, he told John to look up at the sky.

"One year can't change the sky, right?" he asked.

"Unfortunately, we had a nuclear war last Christmas so...," John broke his seriousness and laughed. "I'm just kidding. Yeah. It's still just stars."

"I suspect they're just as beautiful as they are for me," Sherlock responded, almost sounding defensive for the stars.

"Yes. Very beautiful. I just didn't think you'd care about something as ordinary and forgettable as-," John began, but Sherlock interrupted.

"There is nothing ordinary about stars, John. And even if the general populace forgets about them, it doesn't mean I can't appreciate them," Sherlock replied calmly. "They are one of the remaining mysteries in the universe."

"Sherlock Holmes believes in life in the universe?" John asked.

"Hardly. But everything about the universe as a whole is mostly speculative," Sherlock said. "There isn't much in the universe that can't be explained with a little time. The universe is just taking them an annoying amount of time."

"Not everything can be explained... and that's not necessarily a bad thing," John said, lowering his gaze from the distant lights.

"What can't be explained?" Sherlock asked.

"Us. This." John held his breath after he said them, said them with such force, as though they were undeniable proofs. "You can't explain it, but it's still a good thing, isn't it?" And if he sounded hopeful, he wouldn't deny it.

Sherlock didn't speak. John heard cars passing, but he didn't know if that was over the phone or around him.

"Stop here," Sherlock finally said and cut the moment with an axe. "Welcome to Angelo's. He'll know who you are when you walk in. Just in case, tell him I sent you. I'm sure he'll tell you all about what I did for him. Just understand that he's harmless now. Feel free to text me while you eat, but I'll let you off the call so you can eat with both hands."

"Sherlock-," John tried, sighing.

"Happy Birthday, John," Sherlock said and then call ended.

John frowned. Why did Sherlock avoid statements and questions like that? John thought he was afraid of something, not of sex or anything like that, but definitely of deep emotion. Why couldn't he just admit he wasn't a robot like his brother?

Clearing his face of anxiety, John stepped up to the brilliant, green-tinted storefront. It was a small restaurant, but it looked tasty. When he stepped inside, a bell jingled and a host with the name tag 'Benny' greeted him. He was almost instantly overpowered by a larger man with a long graying ponytail who swooped in like a vulture.

"Would you be Dr. Watson?" the man asked.

"You must be Angelo," John greeted and held out his hand. Angelo smiled and nodded, shaking it.

"I have your table prepared, just as Sherlock requested," Angelo explained, leading John to the nearby window seat. "There's a candle, nice and romantic. Sherlock said I didn't have to, but it's not often Sherlock has a date."

"Yeah, even when that date is a year behind," John said, smile faltering. Angelo noticed and nodded with a frown.

"Yes. But at least the date goes well," the large man said. "He seemed pleased when he left, so I assume you will be too."

"Excuse me?" John asked. Did Angelo know about the time difference?

"It's not your fault, Dr. Watson. None of it is. Time is a funny thing. Sherlock explained it to me during his side of the date." Angelo paused while Benny gave John a menu. "Made me feel honored, honestly. Sherlock said I was one of only two people he told."

John debated if Sherlock had told Angelo so the man wouldn't be super confused about the two halves of a dinner taken a year apart. Angelo was also the first person Sherlock had known to not look at John with pity in their eyes upon their first meeting. Angelo had greeted him with a smile, and even now he seemed happy. John knew they couldn't hope to explain the situation to everyone Sherlock knew, but having a happy conversation about Sherlock with someone who understood was nice.

And Angelo had no problem sitting down after John ordered and talking about Sherlock and how the detective had caught him breaking into cars but had cleared his name from murder and how a month in prison was infinitely better than life. Then Angelo had reformed himself and opened his restaurant, and Sherlock used the place a lot to spy on people. Angelo would do anything for Sherlock. John found himself smiling and laughing with Angelo as he recounted the entire experience with Sherlock. Angelo was very upbeat and happy to share his memories. It was nice seeing Sherlock from someone else's point of view that wasn't entirely work related.

When John's food arrived, Angelo smiled and excused himself to return to work. As was common with Sherlock, he had great timing and sent a text right at that moment.

'What did you order? - SH'

'Spaghetti'

'So basic. It's your birthday. Order something you can't make at home - SH'

'I like spaghetti. What did you get?'

'Chicken Parmesan. Decided on protein if I have to eat. - SH'

'Delicious choice.'

'You should get it too. - SH'

'I'm fine with my spaghetti.'

So they argued about food and Sherlock's fine taste despite not eating most days. They debated the differences in being a food-y and being rich. Sherlock mentioned his childhood; the way his mother used to take him and Mycroft to restaurants around whatever estate they were staying at that week while his father worked; the way he used to experiment on condiments and figure out which ones were made of what and which ones tasted best. His mother used to say it was his first true experiment.

'How did you mother die?' John asked.

His plate had been taken away, but it had been replaced with another one - one carrying a slice of cake. It was vanilla with a single candle in the center. John tried to say he didn't want it, but Benny smiled at him.

"Mr. Holmes insisted," he said and lit the candle.

"Thank you," John said, and Benny shrugged along with his smile as he left. John resisted texting Sherlock with a thank you as well, not wanting to give the detective a way out of answering the question about his mother.

'She was hit by a car when I was 13 - SH'

John frowned down at his phone and started typing his condolences, but he stopped. Sherlock probably wouldn't care either way. In fact, he'd probably tell John that condolences twenty years later didn't mean much. Darn it. John was going to send some anyway. - but then Sherlock sent another text, beating him to it.

'No sorrys needed. Her heart was weak. She would have died soon regardless. Besides, I've come to terms with it. Unfortunately, I've been told my heart died with her. - SH'

'Oh, but that's not entirely true,' John wrote back. He cut off the tip of his cake and tasted it. Ooh.

Sherlock took a bit longer than John expected, but eventually he sent back 'How would you know? - SH'

'No one without a heart would order me this cake,' John said. It was delicious. It was just like Sherlock to know John preferred vanilla and yellow cake to chocolate. How he knew, John had given up trying to figure out.

'Cakes are traditional on birthdays, so I'm told. - SH'

'Shut up. Don't even act like you didn't get cakes.' John took another bite and worried for a moment that perhaps Sherlock hadn't gotten cakes on his birthdays. He didn't seem like he would be a normal child with normal birthday parties.

'Okay. I admit it. I had lots of cake as a child. - SH' John smiled when he relaxed. Oh thank God.

'It's probably the only thing you ate as a child. Good too. You need the calories to keep up your brain function.' John nodded to himself, eating more. He'd had a cousin once who couldn't eat properly because of a sickness. They'd fed her nothing but empty calories just so she could function normally.

'No lecture on health issues involved with too much cake? -SH'

John smiled. 'That would make this a very guilt ridden cake I'm eating. I refuse to stoop to that level.' Looking down, he almost laughed. There wasn't much cake left to be guilty over.

'Well we wouldn't want guilty cake, now would we? - SH'

'No, thank you.'

'You're welcome. - SH'

'I didn't really thank you for that, you know'

'I know. That was for the thank you coming soon for ordering the cake and dinner at all. - SH'

Typical Sherlock. Cutting off normalcy at any chance. 'So I assume I don't need to say it anymore.'

'Not unless you want to - SH'

'But that would be so normal and predictable.'

'That's fine. I like it when you're normal. - SH'

'I'm always normal,' John answered, slipping the last bit of cake into his mouth and enjoying just how soft, warm, and delicious it was. He didn't eat a lot of sweets and junk food, but this was definitely a birthday present.

'Hardly - SH' was Sherlock response. John smiled around his cake and swallowed before he tried to type a response.

'Thank you,' John said. Thank Sherlock for being interesting, being brilliant, being unusual, being a jerk, and being one of the most human human beings that John had ever known. 'Really. This was a great birthday.'

'Anytime. - SH'

Angelo swung over to pick up the cake plate, and John made sure to tell him how delicious it was. At this point, John wouldn't have been shocked to hear that Sherlock had invented the recipe or made it himself last year and had invented a way for cakes to never go bad or, hell, that Sherlock had invented cake. It just seemed like one of those nights. But Angelo said it was his own personal recipe and thanked John for coming. Before he stepped away from the table, Angelo handed John an envelope with his name on it. It took John by surprise. He'd been expecting it a bit throughout the day, but he'd totally forgotten about the possibility during dinner.

"Tell him I said hello," Angelo said as John gathered his things and stood.

"I will. Thank you, Angelo. I'll come again sometime," John promised.

Benny waved to him as he left, manning the front again. The cool night air was so different than the pervading warmth of the restaurant, but John didn't mind it. He was full to the brim with warm food and emotion. Though all the conversation had been over text messages, he felt like he truly just had dinner with Sherlock.

When John got back to his flat, he set the new recording on the table and pulled out the photos he had of Sherlock, smiling down at them. For all his pomp and circumstance, all his airs and graces, Sherlock was very much the same as anyone else. He noticed more things, retained more information, but under it all, he was still human. John smiled at the unsure poses of the photos.

"Oh God... I love it when you're human," he muttered, flipping through them. He paused on the last one, thinking back on what he'd just said. Sliding the photos back into their envelope, he groaned. "Shit," he cursed. He rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair, but it didn't change what he'd said or how he felt. God damn it.

He really was in love with Sherlock Holmes.

And wasn't that just sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Preview, Chapter 17:
> 
> "Well-" was all the man said, looking John over as though he saw nothing of particular interest. It was weird, being sized up by this skinny, greasy looking man. He had a big nose and combed back hair, and his face appeared to have forgotten how to smile.
> 
> Instead of speaking, he slipped his hand into his inside jacket pocket. John's heart thudded in his chest as he debated if he should make a run from the room.
> 
> "What really made it apparent to me that I shouldn't care what others told me to do, was that no one ever asked me what I wanted to do. And isn't that what people want... in their normal little lives? For others to be happy?" Sherlock asked.
> 
> Wow. John should start seeing a therapist. He may be going insane. He may be having a break down.


	17. Chapter 17

Opening the envelope seemed much more important now - now that John had admitted to himself, out loud, that he was in love with Sherlock Holmes. Everything seemed more intense, heavier somehow. The mini USB inside the packaging had a bright 4 drawn on it in what looked like white out.

"Haven't eaten in twenty-nine hours. Feeling a bit disorientated. I want it on record that I blame you entirely, Doctor Watson. I've never met someone who would refuse to talk to me unless I ate first," Sherlock said through the computer speakers.

"I hope you ate after these recordings, then," John said and walked away from the computer to grab a different shirt to wear. It was kind of cold inside, John blamed the rain, and his short sleeved top wasn't thick enough to keep away the chill.

"Mind you," Sherlock amended after a moment of silence. "I've never given in to what other people wanted me to do before. I've said so before, but perhaps you have forgotten, that you are quite remarkable, John."

John paused, holding the folded jumper he'd pulled out, and turned to look at the laptop where it sat on his bed. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He shouldn't let something so small... So small a compliment made his chest flutter. It shouldn't make him feel this way. He shouldn't let it.

"I've never let others dictate what I do. I'm not genetically built that way. When the general population walks around like a herd of sheep and no one uses their brain for more function than it takes to do the shopping, I never saw a reason to listen to what others said was best for me. I went through school as a problem child. I was brilliant. I knew all the answers, but I knew things, noticed things, that I should have kept to myself. I lack the ability to keep my thoughts to myself, it seems... at least when it comes to what I think of other people." Sherlock let out a short breath. His chair scraped the floor as he stood up.

John took the break as his chance to pull on his jumper. He moved to sit on the edge of his bed as Sherlock's stressed voice returned. He needed to eat.

"After I injured a boy named Richard Brooke, I only ever got input on how I should act or what I should do. I think it was resentment and rebellion that made me worse. What really got me, however... What really made it apparent to me that I shouldn't care what others told me to do, was that no one ever asked me what I wanted to do. Not even when I started university..." Sherlock's voice dropped, and John knew he'd lost him to a memory.

John took a deep breath, folding one leg under himself. "Well what do you want, Sherlock?" he asked.

"I want-," Sherlock started, and it seemed so much as though Sherlock had heard him that John's heart literally skipped a beat. "I love doing what I do right now. I can't imagine myself doing anything less. Of course, Mycroft wishes I would work under him in the government. I've heard I should work for MI6 before. But what do I care for the qualms of a country? Too many politics for good brain work."

"So, what? You wanted to tell someone that all you want to do with your life is work with the police so you can tell them how useless they are?" John asked the air.

"The police are out of their depth. They need someone like me to help them, even if they don't accept that. I was lucky. Lestrade found me and helped me become what I am today. Without him, I wouldn't be me. Without me, the number of unsolved crimes in this city would be double. It's not often I admit someone is useful, but Lestrade has his moments." Sherlock took a pause to breathe, and John thought he heard a lighter. The only thing that kept John from being upset was that this recording happened months ago. "Point is, I do what I do because I'm good at it and it gives me a thrill. I'll probably continue to do this until the day I die, even if everyone I know on the force leaves and I have to build from scratch, I'll do this. Heh. Can you imagine?... I may even get old doing this."

John didn't like that - didn't like the way Sherlock thought of getting old, as though it was only a possibility and not a certainty. He disliked it even more because he knew that someday... someday soon, Sherlock would be at the end of his life. He would never get gray hair or wrinkles. He would never grow old.

"I never pretended to think I was going to change the world or 'do good' with my life. My idea of fun and good living has never been what others expected. I didn't have a great scheme for my life. I just wanted someone to ask. I wanted someone to know that right now, in this life I have, I. Am. Happy. And isn't that what people want... in their normal little lives? For others to be happy?" Sherlock stopped just as he'd regained the bored tone that was so common in his voice.

"That's what I want," John mused, looking down at the audio player on his screen.

"I want you to be happy," John said at the same time as Sherlock.

"What?" The audio file ended with no further dialogue, but John kept looking at it. "What?" he repeated.

Had he heard what he thought he'd heard? Had Sherlock made a message so short? Where was the pomp and circumstance of numbering the file and expressly explaining the purpose of the file? Was that it? Had John really heard the last few seconds right? He clicked near the end of the file and pressed play. There was silence, the silence after Sherlock questioned normalcy. It seemed like the longest pause in the world. And then...

"I want you to be happy," Sherlock said. The clip ended. John clicked back and pressed play. "I want you to be happy."

It was said with a tone of sudden realization, like it hadn't been thought of, hadn't been planned. John would have wondered if Sherlock even knew it was at the end of the file, but Sherlock wouldn't have made a mistake with these. That was left on the end because Sherlock wanted him to hear it. Sherlock wanted him to be happy.

Sherlock cared.

Wow. John should start seeing a therapist. He may be going insane. He may be having a break down. He replayed the whole audio clip again and laid back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Sherlock's voice, full of annoyance and passion, washed over him, and the last line made his chest ache. John hit replay again, and this time he felt tired. On the fourth listen, John rolled onto his side, careful of his laptop, and closed his eyes.

"I want you to be happy."

It may have been the best thing he'd ever heard. And he fell asleep.

\-- -- -- --

"Two heads, two hearts, eight limbs. You see, so far it resembles, perhaps, conjoined twins or some oddity of the like. It's the colors that are the curious part. Red and blue. There are no red and blue people in life. Thus the only explanation is that this is a pop culture reference I am not familiar with," Sherlock ranted.

John smiled. It was brilliant to hear him deduce, and even more brilliant to know that what was stumping his super intelligence mind was a little riddle from him, someone so ordinary. It had been weeks since he'd given Sherlock this riddle, and Sherlock was still guessing.

"Whatever you say, Sherlock," he said.

Sherlock could be heard groaning softly. "You give nothing away, do you?"

"Not this time," John said. Any other time, Sherlock could read him like a book, but this one thing was John's secret and he delighted in hearing Sherlock dance for it.

"Hm. Fine. I will figure this out before long," Sherlock promised and something on his end popped loudly.

"What are you doing?" John asked, only mildly concerned. Sherlock did odd things all the time. It was probably nothing.

"An experiment involving potassium perchlorate."

"Well be careful, and don't light the flat on fire," John said. He decided against using the elevator and instead used the stairs.

"Nonsense. Potassium perchlorate is a common kid's toy. I'd have to be stupid to end up lighting the flat on fire." Sherlock noticeably paused and made a thinking noise. "Are you at work?"

"Yep. Just got in. I'm heading up to my office. Why?" John asked.

"It's five in the morning," Sherlock pointed out.

"Says the man making potassium perchlorate explode." John waved at the nurses who were doing some paperwork at their station, except for that brunette in the back. She was writing fanfiction or something. He waved at her too, and she grinned.

"I'm being careful."

"I'm sure. I have complete faith in you," John said. "I also remind you that you called me, so you can't be worried about my schedule much."

"No... I know your schedule," Sherlock said, but John thought he heard some uncertainty in it.

"Okay. Then you know I have to hang up now and we text until at least lunch." The hospital was quiet, so John tried to keep his voice low. He didn't want to wake any patients he may pass, although he was pretty sure half of these rooms were vacant currently.

"I know," Sherlock said, and John couldn't tell if Sherlock was blunt or defensive or sad because the potassium perchlorate made a loud fizzing noise then, like a sparkler.

"I'll talk to you this afternoon, then," John said when the noise stopped. "I may have something important to tell you."

"Will do." Sherlock hung up. He always hung up first.

John slid his phone in his pocket and sighed. He had something important to tell Sherlock, no maybes about it. The only issue would be if John could work up the courage to tell him. How do you tell a man living a year in the past that you love him, unconditionally, and he's in danger of dying. How do you change the future so selfishly for yourself? How do you even come to terms with the idea of loving someone like that so much?

His train of anxious thoughts stopped the moment he stepped into his tiny office and found a man there.

"Good morning?" he asked. Was this another 'friend' of Sherlock's? Well at least this one was fully dressed.

"Well-" was all the man said, looking John over as though he saw nothing of particular interest. It was weird, being sized up by this skinny, greasy looking man. He had a big nose and combed back hair, and his face appeared to have forgotten how to smile. He had a pinched look about him, something angry but sad. He wore a relaxed suit and looked tired. On his right hand was a blue, latex glove. His left hand was hidden in his pocket.

"Can I help you with anything, Mr...?" John asked, motioning to his guest.

"Anderson," the man said, and even his voice sounded odd. He sounded... sordid. "And no."

The name rang a vague bell, but John didn't think on it. "Then why are you in my office?"

Anderson opened his mouth and then shut it. He pressed his lips together, and his face malfunctioned until he looked queasy. Instead of speaking, he slipped his hand into his inside jacket pocket. John's heart thudded in his chest as he debated if he should make a run from the room. He wasn't exactly confined, but if this was one of Moriarty's men it wouldn't matter much. Then Anderson pulled out a CD case, and John let out the tentative breath he'd been holding.

Without a word, Anderson set the CD case down on the small desk beside him and slid his hand into his other pocket. John knew what this must mean. Two weeks since his birthday and now he was getting another note, one more piece of the puzzle, one more piece to love.

"Keep in mind that he's a psychopath," Anderson said, and this time he definitely sounded gloomy. "He makes it hard to remember that."

And before John could correct him, tell him Sherlock wasn't psychotic, Anderson pushed past him and left the office. John grabbed the CD first and then looked out the door for Anderson. The pale man was already out of sight.

'You know very strange people,' he sent to Sherlock.

John stripped off his jacket and put down his bag, which held his lunch, mostly, and a change of clothes if he needed them. He slid the CD in with his clothes before shrugging into his doctor's coat. It was then that he remembered where he'd heard of Anderson before. Sarah had brought him up after John's accident - said he worked part time with the police. Forensics, John thought, but he could be wrong.

'Problem with that? SH'

John thought that over for a moment, considering all the people he'd met through this scavenger hunt and his relationship with Sherlock. They were definitely all strange in some way or another, but most had been fairly decent people - even Irene. He smiled and shrugged.

'Nope,' he said. 'Not at all.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Preview, Chapter 18:
> 
> "Fear." Sherlock paused. A lighter clicked open, then shut. "When I was young, I feared quite a few things - pain being one of them. What child doesn't fear being hurt? I am not a child."
> 
> John pulled back from the blurring paper and sighed. "My mind is in a million places at once, Molly."
> 
> "I don't have friends. I've got acquaintances all over - Lestrade, Molly, Mrs. Hudson, even some of those inept officers in the force like Anderson and Donovan. But I've just got one friend. That's you, John."
> 
> John shut his eyes and took several deep breaths. He just kept hearing Mycroft in the pauses, kept hearing Irene Adler blaming him in her own way, and kept hearing Angelo saying it wasn't his fault.
> 
> "Shit," he muttered and sucked in a gasp of a breath. "Just... one more miracle, Sherlock..."
> 
> Death is an absolute. There's nothing you can do about it.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: I am SO sorry about the HUGE gap in posting. Life was rather hectic. Please enjoy this chapter along with my sincerest apologies.

Working an entire shift was hard when John kept thinking about the CD case in his bag just waiting for him. John was a serious doctor, however, so he knew how to give his patients his full attention. It just happened that every time he left a patient, his mind was crawling back to his office. Eight hours later, John was still not free to return home and watch the newest piece of the Sherlock puzzle. He was off the clock, but Mondays had the added time of going to see Molly in the morgue to work on the case. It wasn't just Mondays, but Monday was the first day of the week where he had this time. He used to come during only lunches, but it was never enough time and he ended up not eating a lot. Not healthy.

"You seem distracted today," Molly said after John had been staring at the same document for twenty minutes.

John pulled back from the blurring paper and sighed. "My mind is in a million places at once, Molly."

"Maybe today just isn't a good day. You need fresh eyes, maybe." She was standing just far enough away that she probably couldn't read the information in front of John.

He appreciated the distance. He'd already told her he didn't want to get her involved. Beyond that, Lestrade had been anxious about leaving so much evidence where a morgue worker could look into it. This made two civilians who knew about it, and he wasn't keen on the idea.

"Maybe," he agreed and frowned down at the papers around him. He hadn't made any progress since coming down today. He knew no more than he had a month ago. Moriarty was after people Sherlock knew - but was he still doing it? Was there a way to stop him? Moriarty hadn't contacted John since March. It was August. Had anyone else related to Sherlock died? Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Molly, Anderson, Irene Adler, Angelo, and Mycroft. Why had none of them been targeted yet? Some of them definitely fit the bill of being involved in cases with Sherlock. At least two were even ex-cons. So far the deaths had been people Sherlock had caught or people who tried to rat on Moriarty... and at least one case of friendship with Sherlock had caused death. So why no one else?

Why hadn't he killed John when he'd had the chance?

"Take a break. You'll not think properly in the state you're in," Molly said, pulling him back from his thoughts once more.

John smiled at her, a tired grin. "You're right. I'm too distracted and too tired. I'll come back tomorrow... or whenever I have a spare moment next."

As John packed everything away again, Molly opened and closed her mouth several times, then she stood passively by an operating table. When John turned to her, he meant to ask if she wanted to say something, but she shook her head before he could and smiled encouragingly.

"Good luck, Dr. Watson," she said.

"Thanks." To say he wasn't confused would be a lie, but he didn't press her for information. If she didn't want to talk, he wouldn't force her to.

By the time John's taxi stopped by the flat, the rain was really coming down. The one day John neglected to bring his umbrella just in case and it rained like the sky itself was bloody falling. He paid the driver and scurried inside as fast as he could, but that didn't keep him from being soaked.

"Oh my," was the first thing Mrs. Hudson said when she saw him, and she put her hand to her mouth. Great. Not even a greeting. An exclamation.

"Evening to you too, Mrs. Hudson," John replied, shaking off his wet coat.

"Oh, Dear, I'm sorry," the old woman said and hurried to help him. She hung the dripping garment from a walled coat rack and tried to dry him off by making dusting motions on his shoulder. When she realized she was being silly, she backed off and waved her hand as though brushing away the idea. "You go upstairs, and I'll make you a nice cuppa."

"Thanks very much, but don't worry. I'll make something on my own," John said. It wasn't so much that he didn't want her to as it was him trying to be alone so he could watch or listen to Sherlock's next recording.

"Tish tosh. I'm going to go make you one right now." And the pink clad woman bustled off into her own section of the building.

John sighed, admiring the woman's care and affection. His own mother had never been so insistent, although she'd been plenty attentive to the needs of her children. John called out that he was heading upstairs and then moved quickly, trying to leave as little water as possible on the steps.

The first thing he did when he stepped into his flat was to immediately strip himself of his wet clothing. He hopped in the shower to rinse off the city smell that clung to raindrops and then dressed himself in sleep pants and a sweater. Mrs. Hudson appeared with tea through a towel wall as John was drying his hair. He hadn't even heard her coming.

"Thanks," he said, throwing the towel over his shoulder and taking the cup.

"Just this once. And you may want to put socks on, or you'll catch cold with the weather like this." She left with a cautionary wave over her shoulder, the one that held one finger higher than the rest as though saying 'mark my words' or 'don't say I didn't warn you.' 

John chuckled and took a sip of his tea. Brilliant, as always. She always made a good cup of tea, and she always said 'just this once.' He wondered if she knew how often she said that line. John shrugged and settled himself down on the couch with a sigh. He rolled his shoulders, cleared his throat, and took another sip of tea before sliding the CD into the drive.

"Recording three of eight," Sherlock started. No video then.

In the pause Sherlock gave him, John did his count. He'd heard recording five, six, seven, two, four, and now three. That left one and eight. The beginning and the end. This hunt was almost over.

"Fear." Sherlock paused. A lighter clicked open, then shut. "I've said once before, in the last recording, recording two, that I have only been afraid of one thing since my mother died. When I was young, I feared quite a few things - pain being one of them. What child doesn't fear being hurt? A young boy scrapes his knee and calls for his mother. A baby grows hungry and cries for food until there is no longer a growling, painful feeling in its stomach. Children fear pain very much. Children fear being abandoned or getting lost. I am not a child."

John reached over for his towel, his hair dripping down the back of his neck. He took a sip of his steaming tea and shivered in the aftermath. It was so different from the cold rain out the windows and the solemn tone of Sherlock's voice.

"When my mother passed away, Mycroft and I became the final two of the Holmes family. I learned that day that death happens. My mother died, and I was unable to do anything about it. My parents were gone. That was the ultimate level of abandonment for a child. Mycroft liked to believe he wasn't affected, but even adults feel the loss of a parent. I decided then to not care about people the way I had as a child." The coldness of Sherlock's tone shouldn't have made John ache the way it did.

"After her death, I feared nothing. I pissed people off without worry. I purposefully rubbed police officers the wrong way, stopped locking my door when I went out, and my diet decreased immensely. Over the years I have improved thanks to Mycroft's meddling and Inspector Lestrade, but I am nowhere near the lifestyle I once took part in. But I have grown to feel fear again, and that is the one thing I regret. What I fear is so.... normal." It was as if the idea baffled him, that anything about himself could possibly be normal.

John smiled, but his chest felt tight. He wished his could tell Sherlock how much he loved Sherlock's normal, his humanity, his confusion as well as his brilliance. He could, his realized, if he just picked up the phone, but he didn't want to stop the recording early.

"My greatest fear is entirely about other people. I fear, and this is hard for me... I fear letting people down who really matter to me. I fear leaving behind some who will miss me, but I also fear leaving behind no one to miss me. I've tried all morning to think of how to word this recording, but I have, unfortunately, come up with nothing as elegant as I'd like. I simply fear disappointing those left behind. I don't have friends. I've got acquaintances all over - Lestrade, Molly, Mrs. Hudson, even some of those inept officers in the force like Anderson and Donovan. But I've just got one friend. That's you, John, and my greatest fear isn't dying or failing or being hurt. My greatest fear, believe it or not, is hurting you."

Shit. John pressed a hand over his mouth. His tea sat on the table beside him, forgotten.

"I couldn't believe it myself. I knew I feared something. I knew I feared hurting those I cared about, but until recently I thought I could ignore that fear. I have never had someone like you in my life, John. I have never before made a documentary of my life to share with someone else as I am doing for you right now. I have never cared who got involved in my cases so long as they didn't get in the way, but when I think of you involved I just wonder if you're going about it safely. I have no doubts in your skill, of course. It's just thoughts I keep having whenever I find new evidence. I find myself hoping, something I don't take part in on a regular basis - hoping you are safe at work or home."

His chest thrummed powerfully, causing him pain and warmth and joy all at once. What was Sherlock saying? John had often joked with himself that Sherlock cared, had found small clues to the idea that he cared, but this was direct and blatant. John wasn't sure he could handle it.

"I told myself twenty years ago that death was an absolute, something mankind had very little control over, especially in random acts of violence like a car crash. Still, I find myself worrying lately, fearing death as I have not feared it since childhood. Death is an absolute. People die - People have died," Sherlock said. He paused to breathe, a deep breath that barely made it through the microphone. John felt his throat closing up, felt the sticky sensation that precluded tears. When Sherlock spoke again, he sounded resigned. "But that's what people do. There's nothing you, I, or anyone else can do about it. Your fate is not in my hands, nor is mine in yours. Thus I have rediscovered fear, and I must live with it... just like every other normal person. I must live and hope, and one day I will face this fear. And wont that day just be spectacular."

John shut his eyes and took several deep breaths. He just kept hearing Mycroft in the pauses. He kept hearing that Sherlock was dead, kept hearing Irene Adler blaming him in her own way, and kept hearing Angelo saying it wasn't his fault. Would this recording hurt so much if he was still alive? Right now it might as well be John's killer.

"If we meet again," Sherlock said, his voice back to business. "Don't be surprised to find me guarding you... in my own way."

John turned off the recording ten seconds from the end.

"Shit," he muttered and sucked in a gasp of a breath.

The flat was silent besides his breathing as he tried to get hold of the feelings that had welled up so suddenly. He couldn't lose it like this. He couldn't. Sherlock didn't know the effect his words had, and John really shouldn't let them effect him so much. But the voices and memories of conversations wouldn't leave him. Everyone he'd met had liked Sherlock in some way, had been close to Sherlock. They had all looked at John with such sad eyes, like they knew the hole he was digging himself into, like they knew John had been living in denial. None of it had meant anything to John, but now Sherlock had to go and leave a message all about people dying.

Death is an absolute. There's nothing you can do about it.

John's mobile went off then, cutting off his thoughts violently. He shook his head and cleared his throat, trying to get control of his voice. It was a call from Sherlock. Of course. Perfect timing as always.

"Evening, John," Sherlock greeted without any acknowledgement. "I trust you had an uneventful day." John pressed his lips together. 'I find myself hoping you are safe at home.' Sherlock was worried about his safety. "I was involved with a multiple homicide. There was a woman dressed entirely in pink. Lestrade, of course, had no clues. I discovered she's had a string of lovers and is from out of town. As usual, Lestrade didn't understand, but I found her suitcase. I was just about to text a killer to lure him into the open, but I realized you may want to scold me first before I -"

"Stop talking," John said, voice thick. He hated how thick it was.

"Excuse me?" Sherlock asked. He didn't sound angry. He just sounded confused. Normally John would love that sound, but he'd heard it enough in that last recording.

"I think... we should stop calling each other," John continued, running his hand down the back of his neck and taking a deep, uneven breath.

"....Why?" Oh, there came the serious detective voice.

"I can't do this anymore," John said, voice so close to a whisper. "I can't -... I can't. Just... don't call me anymore. Please."

"John, what's happened?" Sherlock asked. "Did something happen?"

"I can't save you, Sherlock!" John shouted and covered his eyes with his hand. "I can't do anything! So please just leave me alone."

Sherlock didn't say anything at first, and John didn't wait to see if he had a response later. He ended the call and dropped the hand holding the mobile. Grown men don't cry, he told himself, but he knew that was a lie. He'd seen plenty of men cry in hospitals. Still, he tried to stop himself. It was like cutting out a piece of his own chest. He'd turned Sherlock away, and Sherlock wouldn't call him anymore. John had told him not to, so he wouldn't. And knowing that hurt too.

"One more thing," John said, voice breaking. He put the phone back to his ear. There was no call going through, no noise emitting from the speaker, no connection to anyone past or present. "Just one more miracle, Sherlock.... for me. Don't...." He stopped, his throat solid with tears that he bit back. "Don't be dead. Would you do that? Would you? Just for me?" He let out a sob and sucked in his breath. It hurt. His lungs stung. His chest burned. "Just stop it. Stop this."

He dropped the phone onto the cushion beside him and buried his face in his hands. He'd done this. He'd let it get out of hand. He'd known from the start that Sherlock was gone, that nothing good would happen here, and yet he'd persisted. He'd agreed to Mycroft's stupid plans, had let Sherlock woo him with puzzles and hunts and wit. Why had he done that? Why had he let it build so much? All it did was make this moment hurt worse.

"Just for me...," he said in a breath. "God... Don't die on me."

His flat felt far too dark and quiet, and his tea sat - cold. His mobile didn't ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Preview, Chapter 19:
> 
> It was like detox from a drug addiction. He wasn't even listening to the tapes. He definitely wasn't watching the video. It all felt dangerous... and broken.
> 
> "I want to apologize, because I set you up to experience a greater pain than I ever did, and I knew it from the start." Mycroft and Sherlock didn't even look the same, but now John was noticing similarities. Damn it.
> 
> "You remember that kid who shot you in the shoulder last year? He made a request from prison. It's kind of peculiar, but the judge decided to grant it. He wants to give you something," Lestrade said.
> 
> "He was better with you."
> 
> He just wanted to forget about the Holmes family, but they kept coming back.


	19. Chapter 19

It rained the entire first week of September. It seemed like it rained the whole month, the way the sky kept a constant deep gray cloud cover and roared from time to time. Even with his umbrella and using cabs, John swore his entire wardrobe was saturated by a skin numbing wetness. He felt heavy and humid wherever he went, whether it be work, home, or the shopping mart. Mrs. Hudson made him a cuppa for when he walked in the door every day for the first week. They were all delicious, but John never found time to finish one. His mind buzzed with paperwork he needed to finish at work and all the patients he'd seen each day. As the days dragged on, he worried he was no long doing his job properly. Nothing had changed about his work - he'd checked - but he still felt like he was failing somehow.

He didn't return to the morgue to see Molly until the second Friday of the month. As usual, they didn't talk much. She unlocked the drawer for him, and he pulled out the files. He didn't know that there was anything in the files to find, to be honest. He'd been looking over them for months. All he'd found was that Moriarty was in every photo - or the man they assumed was Moriarty. Maybe John wasn't meant to be the one to solve this case. Maybe no one was. Only Sherlock could do it.

Sherlock was in the photos too. His name was on the forms. Seeing those made John wonder why he was still doing this now, but he knew why. Just because Sherlock was gone didn't make the case unimportant. Just because John and Sherlock could never be together didn't mean John didn't want to find Sherlock's killer. John still wanted to make a difference.

Four weeks. A bloody month, that's how long it had been. It was like detox from a drug addiction. He wasn't even listening to the tapes. He definitely wasn't watching the video. It all felt dangerous... and broken.

"It's been a long time since I've seen you down here," Molly said, breaking the stagnant silence. She'd finished an autopsy recently and was putting away her newly cleaned utensils.

"I've been busy," John said, not looking at her.

"I noticed. Working longer days, are we? Must leave you tired." Molly stepped closer, craning her neck to see the papers. John admired her attempt at friendly conversation, but it made his stomach twist. "Maybe I could help out somet-"

"Molly." John snapped out her name, causing her to jump and take a step back. "I don't want you looking at them. I've told you before. I'm sorry, but it's for your own safety. Just - ...don't."

"Oh... O-Okay." The mortician shuffled away, glancing back once or twice before shaking her head and walking out of the room. The shutting door echoed a metallic hollow sound around the sterile area.

John rested his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands. He shouldn't have snapped at her. She was just trying to help. It was Molly. She was harmless and good-natured. Why had he done that? He was cutting himself off from people. It wasn't good. When had he become so wrapped up in his solitude? He knew the only thing causing it was Sherlock. Nothing else had changed in his life. His break with Sherlock was ruining his life.

His mobile buzzed in his pocket. With a tired sigh, he fished it out and flipped it open without looking at the screen.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Meet me upstairs in five minutes. We need to talk." The call ended. John took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He could try to pretend he hadn't heard the order, but it probably wasn't smart to ignore Mycroft Holmes.

John put the files back together, keeping them neat and organized. Then he slipped them back into their file cabinet and locked it. He rapped his knuckles against the metal casing, listening to the vibration it caused. His slow pace was all to delay going to see Mycroft, he knew it, but Mycroft sounded intense on the phone and John was in no hurry to meet his doom.

Turned out he didn't have much choice. Mycroft was just outside the elevator when John stepped off.

"You couldn't just come down? What? Are you afraid of morgues?" John asked, shrugging his coat on more and looking away from the deep frown on Mycroft's lips.

"You'll understand my distaste for them only after you have been called in to identify your sister's body after she dies of alcohol poisoning," the older Holmes stated coldly.

"Don't talk bad about my sister," John replied, just as coldly.

Mycroft started walking, fully expecting John to follow him, which he did. They walked down the hall and into an empty office John had never been in before. It was covered in personal effects, and he felt bad for intruding into the space, but Mycroft walked in like he owned it.

"Dr. Watson, let's stop this dog fight before it starts. I didn't come here to bait you. I came to apologize." Mycroft turned where he stood and folded his arms behind his back.

"Apologize?" John asked, shaking his head. "For which part?"

"For all of it. You probably knew this already, but I knew a great deal about your relationship with my brother before you ever became aware of him. I knew the extent to which it would progress and with what rapidity. I want to apologize, because I set you up to experience a greater pain than I ever did, and I knew it from the start." His words were sincere, but his face was such a stone, and John couldn't pull any meaning from it.

"Well it's good to know you're decent enough to apologize. It doesn't change anything, though. I've ended it with Sherlock. We're not calling each other anymore." His phone had been a heavy burden in his pocket ever since, and he was always so aware of it.

Mycroft nodded. "I know. You stopped sending me updates with a final message that said 'I'm not speaking to Sherlock anymore.' Believe me, it was quite clear. And I'll honor your wishes to stay out of it. I just wanted to have one last discussion with you. A last farewell, you might say."

"Yeah, alright." John looked away from Mycroft, suddenly feeling guilty just by looking at him. Mycroft and Sherlock didn't even look the same, but now he was noticing similarities. Damn it.

"He was better with you," Mycroft said, and his tone was so humble, so sad, that John had to look back at him. Even the brother's expression seemed forlorn, and his eyes bore into John's heart. "He'd become so... bored with life, so disinterested in people. I was beginning to believe he didn't care about anything anymore. When he came back from visiting you at Christmas, I thought he'd finally snapped, lost his mind to apathy. But he grew... kinder isn't the right word, but he began to feel more committed to his cases and the people in them again. It was, and I don't use the term lightly, a miracle."

Were they even using the same speech patterns now?

"Are you done? Mycroft?" John stepped toward the door, not wanting to stand here anymore. He felt like he was being subtly guilt tripped, and he refused to let that happen. He had told Sherlock to stop calling him, so he wasn't about to call Sherlock. Mycroft be damned.

Mycroft took a steady breath, sizing John up, and then smiled down his large nose. "Of course. Good day, Doctor Watson." John didn't buy the smile, not for a second, but he took his chance and left the room. He just wanted to forget about the Holmes family, but they kept coming back.  
\-- -- -- -- --

John strolled down the street, pulling his jacket close around his jumper. Bloody freezing, it was. A pack of children ran by him, giggling and dressed up in all sorts of outfits. There was a thirteen year old Captain America in the pack holding the hand of a tiny Tinkerbell. She waved at him as they passed him and tossed some glitter too late to get it on him. Captain America shouted 'Good job' anyway as they rounded the corner of the block. It was almost cute enough to make John not care that it was freezing but not snowing and there were trick-or-treaters running loose with their parents nowhere in sight.

"Happy Halloween," he grunted, turning the corner and stepping into Dorset Square. He slowed when he felt his pocket vibrate and pulled his phone out. His steps stayed slow as he closed his eyes and answered it. "What can I do you for, Inspector?"

"Yeah, I was wondering if you could make a stop by the station sometime, Doctor Watson," Lestrade said. "You remember that kid who shot you in the shoulder last year?"

"Kind of hard to forget," John said with a sigh, rolling his shoulder at the memory of the pain.

"Right. Sorry. He made a request from prison. It's kind of peculiar, but the judge decided to grant it. He wants to give you something." He sounded like he was doing more than just talking on the phone. He was probably doing paperwork. "Anyway, can you stop by tonight or tomorrow?"

"I'm heading out for a drink tonight, but I'll swing by on my way." What could it hurt at this point? Raz leaving him something could be dangerous, but John found he didn't much care anymore.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Wait up for me. I'll catch a cab and be there in a couple minutes." He stepped off the curb of the street, waving down a passing cabbie with his light on.

The ride took a grand total of eighteen slow minutes, slow because the cabbie kept ranting off about this friend of his, brilliant bloke, who'd gotten himself killed after murdering three people. As John understood it, the passenger usually ranted the driver's ear off, not the other way around, but here he was... stuck listening to murder stories. As they pulled to a stop, the cabbie finished by saying he was glad the old bugger had been shot, though, because he was giving cabbies a bad name. They weren't all killers. But he sounded so creepy when he said it that John made a note to catch his cab number and give it to Lestrade inside.

The station was half dark, most of the staff gone home for the night, but there were plenty of people still up and roaming about. John was led to the same table where he'd sat before, analyzing bits of crime scene data until a bomb destroyed it all. After a minute or so, he was joined by Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade.

"Evening, John," he greeted and gave a tired groan.

"Same to you, Inspector," John said. They stared at each other for a long moment before Lestrade sighed and reached into his pocket. On the table he sat down a tiny, clear, plastic case with a black micro-SD card.

"We ran some tests. Techs were instructed not to listen to the file on it, but they did every scan they know of. It's virus free and clean as a whistle. Safe to you and any computer you stick it in." He paused again while John stared at the tiny device and then let out an exclamation. "Almost forgot. This too. This is from me, but you'll need it." And he set a bigger SD card beside the smaller one. Looking it over, John realized it was actually an adapter. It was for the micro-SD card, so it would fit in his computer.

"He left me a memory card," John said, his voice flat. He knew exactly what this was. He'd probably known from the moment his phone had rung with Lestrade on the other end.

"An audio file, to be exact." 

Another piece of the scavenger hunt. One of the only two pieces left. It was either the first one Sherlock recorded... or the last one. One of two pieces John had forgotten could very well find him even if he never left his house or work again. Sherlock, or one of his many acquaintances, would gravitate toward John like a metal ball to a magnet. There was no stopping them.

But that didn't mean John had to listen to it.

John flashed a smile up at Lestrade. "Thank you, Detective." He lifted the two devices off the table and slipped them into his pocket. "I'll get the adapter back to you as soon as possible."

"Any idea what it could be?" Lestrade asked, standing up when John did. John shook his head.

"No idea. If it's evidence worthy, I'll bring it back." The two men grasped hands in parting, but then John paused. "Why didn't the tech guys listen to the file? Are you not worried he's passing me intel?"

"Well, as you just said, you'd bring it back if it was important... plus, the kid said it was personal and for your ears only. Usually I'd be suspicious, but something about him made me want to trust him. You've met him. You know what I mean?" Lestrade asked, and John could tell the older man was looking for proof that he wasn't losing his edge as an officer. He'd probably gotten scolded for believing Raz.

"No, you're right," John said. "He definitely feels like a trustworthy kid. And he picked a good guy to deliver." He took a step toward the door, let out a huff of air, and turned to Lestrade again. "Thank you. And uh... I'll see you later."

"See you around."

John caught another taxi, this one without the rambling driver, but he didn't head home. He was going out, like he'd told Lestrade. He was already halfway to the bar when he realized he had the SD card in his pocket. It would be there, taunting him, until he got home and could throw it out or bury it in a junk box. Already it was squeaking up at him, begging John to listen to it. The doctor sighed and leaned against the car window.

He hated scavenger hunts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Preview, Chapter 20:
> 
> When had this turned into an interrogation? "Photos and a damn audio file message, but none of it matters, because I'm not going to look at them anymore and I'm not going to listen to the message."
> 
> "John, if he left you a message, that's all you've got of him," Sarah said. "You've got to listen to it. I mean.. What if it's important?"
> 
> "Today is the twelfth of April. I have known you, John Hamish Watson, for exactly six months. We have never spoken in person, but in a way I believe that is its own sort of perfection." Sherlock's voice made John's whole body ache. "So it should come as no surprise to you...," Sherlock paused and took a deep breath.
> 
> "You and your brother are the same," John growled out. He felt so angry, so heated, so stifled. "Did neither of you consider how this would make me feel?"
> 
> "The only time a man drinks that much he's either out to kill a man or kiss a girl... or guy! Hahaha! So which is it?"


	20. Chapter 20

It was a busy night at the pub, and most of the patrons were all dressed up for the occasion. There were devil women and several devil men, a cupid, someone dressed entirely in white, people with gray faces and orange horns, a witch or wizard or two, and even a playboy bunny hopping around the bar. John sat at a small booth near the front, not wanting to be lost to the Halloween singles crowd. He was starting to feel underdressed, sitting there in a black cat t-shirt and his woolen jumper, when Sarah came back with her drink. She was dressed in a casual professional manner, having come here straight from work.

"You know, John, you didn't have to buy me a drink or... four," she said, dropping down beside him. She was on her third drink, a screwdriver with strawberry juice instead of the typical orange, and was sufficiently tipsy.

"I had to do something," John said. "I mooched off your hospitality for the entire month of March. A couple drinks is nothing compared to the price of food I ate."

Sarah giggled. "Only half a year late," she said. She raised her glass to him, and he tapped it with his Old Fashioned. "Thank you for your consideration, Dr. Watson."

"Anytime." The whiskey burned his throat, but it was more than welcome tonight.

"Woah! Slow down on the chugging, Doctor," Sarah said, pulling the glass away from John's lips. He frowned and swallowed what was still in his mouth, and then took a deep gulp of air. "Everything alright there, John?"

Before he could answer, a female mad hatter slipped into the booth and bumped up against him.

"Hey there, stranger," she said, a big grin on her face. "The only time a man drinks that much he's either out to kill a man or kiss a girl... or guy! Hahaha! So which is it?"

"Wha?" John gave a stunned glare at the woman as she clapped him heavily on the back. "Harriett? What are you doing in London?"

"I moved, Bro! Don't you have a Facebook or something?" she asked, yelling a little louder than necessary to get over the music. "Happy Halloween!"

"You're alright," John said, nodding and putting a hand on his sister's shoulder to stop her from bouncing.

"So which is it?" she asked again.

"Which is what?" John asked.

"Are you trying to kill someone or kiss them?" Harry asked as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I saw you sucking that shit down."

"What? Neither. I'm not going to kiss or kill anyone," John said, shaking his head and turning to Sarah, as though he had to make her believe him.

"I don't know," Sarah said, shrugging. "She has a point. You've been drinking more than usual."

"You gonna go kiss that cell phone guy?" Harry nudged his shoulder.

"What? No." John shrugged away from her and ended up against Sarah's shoulder instead.

"You say 'what' a lot," Harriett noted. "So come on. Out with it. You find that guy?"

"What guy?" Sarah asked. A skinny elf tried to slide in beside Harriett, but she shoved him out without even looking at him.

"The guy in the photographs," John said, nodding his head toward her when he said it. He opened his mouth to tell Harriett to mind her own business and he wouldn't be kissing anyone, but then Sarah let out a bit of a squeak.

"I thought you said he died!" she exclaimed. She looked sad through her intoxication.

"He did," John said and turned to Harry again, and again he was interrupted.

"He died?! Johnny, why didn't you tell me?" Harry shouted as an inhuman octave.

John covered his ears and groaned before shaking his head. "No. Listen! He died awhile ago. You didn't need to know, alright?"

"But I thought you really liked this guy." Sarah's expression couldn't pull together with anymore concern if she tried. "And all you have are those photos?"

"Photos?" Harry asked before sucking down half of her drink.

John shook his head to erase the question. When had this turned into an interrogation? "Photos and a damn audio file message, but none of it matters, because I'm not going to look at them anymore and I'm not going to listen to the message."

"Why not?" Harry waved over a bartender. "Missy here is right. You liked this bloke. If he left you a final message, I'd listen to it. Hell, I'd cry over it, repeat it, hug it, obsess over it, and love it."

"What are you, twelve?" John grunted, downing the last of his drink. Harry ordered two new drinks from the guy who answered her call.

"No, she's right," Sarah said, drink forgotten. "John, if he left you a message, that's all you've got of him. That's his voice, probably his honest to God emotion, his real words recorded. If he left you a message, you've got to listen to it. You've got something most people don't have these days. You have a way to remember the way he looks AND sounds for the rest of your life, if you want to. You've got to listen to it. I mean.. What if it's important?"

John sighed and stole one of Harry's two Long Island Ice Teas that were set down on the table. "God, I hate logic right now," he grumbled and started sucking down the drink.

"So you'll listen to the message, then?" Harry asked, grinned and looking past her brother to Sarah. The female doctor smiled back.

"Yeah, alright, you vultures. I'll listen to it," John agreed, giving in and wincing as he felt all that alcohol hitting his stomach.

The girls gave a cheer and clinked their glasses together in victory. John felt their joy seep into him a bit, but that may have been the drinks. Either way, he let himself fade into the warm freedom that came with enough alcohol and good company. He didn't even care when the rest of the night was spent telling stories about each other, horrible embarrassing stories, and watching Harriett con men into buying her more to drinks. Overall, it was a good Halloween. For the first time since he'd broken it off with Sherlock, he enjoyed himself and truly laughed.  
\-- -- -- --

"Recording 8 of 8."

John sighed and rubbed his face. It had been a week since Halloween, and he'd almost convinced himself to ignore the girls, but here he was... listening to it.

"Today is the twelfth of April. I have known you, John Hamish Watson, for exactly six months. We have never spoken in person, but in a way I believe that is its own sort of perfection. I have never grown this... friendly with someone I met in person first. Even Lestrade knew me first as a name on paper, and I knew him from the news. Perhaps I form relationships easier when the mind is known before the figure."

Sherlock's voice made John's whole body ache. He kept telling himself to treat this like a will, like the last precious message from Sherlock. He tried to tell himself that loving a dead man wasn't so bad, that at least he had known him at all, but it didn't stop him from hurting.

"You've known my mind for quite a while, and you will know it even better by the time you hear this message, so you understand that I am extremely observant and I notice things most people would never see or put together with facts."

Of course John knew all that. And was it just him or did Sherlock sound almost... anxious?

"So it should come as no surprise to you...," Sherlock paused and took a deep breath. "...that I already know that I am dead."

John's chest pounded harshly and he bit his lip. "What?" he asked, his voice a breath in the stillness of his flat. Sherlock gave him the courtesy of a few seconds to let that sink in, but part of John wished he'd just dove into his explanation.

"I had my suspicions after Christmas, when I realized we never met after that kiss. I wondered why I wouldn't have sought you out at some point. You told me I've made you cry, and Mycroft started talking to you. I could list specific examples for the better part of an hour, but just know that I pieced it together. I died sometime before the new year. You know it too."

"You knew?" John asked the speakers. He ran his hands over his face. "Oh my God."

"You may wonder why I did any of this if I knew from the start that I wouldn't be around to see it through. The answer is simple, although unconventional for a Holmes. I wanted what time I had with you. If I am to die before the new year, I wanted to spend it on one last great mystery – the Mystery of John Watson. How are we speaking a year apart? What makes him keep talking to me? What does he like, dislike? What is our relationship? How smart is he? "

"Was this some sort of game to you?" John stood up from the couch and huffed a heavy breath, his eyes narrowing at the computer on the table before him. "String him along and see what makes him tick?"

"I asked myself many times what I would do if I discovered all the answers before my time had come, and by now I have the answer. I will enjoy myself. I will stay in contact, and I will be with you until such a day comes that I won't be here to call you."

"You and your brother are the same," John growled out. He felt so angry, so heated, so stifled. "Both liars. Both emotionless machines. Did neither of you consider how this would make me feel? I'm not just some experiment, Sherlock!"

"I know," Sherlock said and stopped. John's heart skipped a beat and his anger backed down in shock. "I know you are probably angry with me now. I promised myself that I wouldn't tell anyone about my discovery, but when I came up with this scavenger hunt of sorts, I decided you had a right to know."

"I had a right to know back in April," John said, still angry but now quiet.

Sherlock was quiet for a long time, and then John faintly heard him breathe in slowly. "That's all I had to say for this one. So I hope you find it in you to forgive me, and do give me a call when you get this if I'm still around. I don't know when this one will get to you, but it should be near the end. Raz is already a little unpredictable, and I'm rather sure he'll be in prison for shooting you by now." He paused again. "I'm sorry, John. Recording 1 will explain the motive of my crimes. It will explain everything. Find it."

The sound cut off, the file ended, and John had one grain of sanity left that kept him from hefting his computer out the window. He could always just step on the SD card, but he knew that wouldn't be as satisfying. A lack of funds to buy a new laptop was the only thing reminding him that he shouldn't break his own things to get revenge on someone else.

He felt used. He felt... betrayed. He felt like he wanted to call Sherlock right this bloody minute and demand he explain himself – recording 1 be damned. They had both known, John and Sherlock, from the beginning that there could never be anything between them. They were on the phone only, never to meet in person. They had both been keeping this secret for a year, although John had apparently let it slip.

A year. John pressed his lips together. Tomorrow was the day he'd first been called by Sherlock.

At that moment, his phone began to ring in his pocket, and his heart leapt to his throat. He pulled it out even though he knew it wasn't Sherlock's ringtone. It was Mycroft.

"Hello?" he answered, voice a little higher pitched than he'd have liked.

"Come by the club, Doctor Watson. It's time."

"Time?"

"Time I told you how he died."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Preview, Chapter 21:
> 
> "He called me once and promised to confess, to turn himself in, to do something to help the case against him, but only if I answered one specific question."
> 
> "Did you?" John asked.
> 
> "Of course."
> 
> "You sent him after me," John said, clarifying.
> 
> Raz's pleas echoed in his mind. He remembered Lestrade, a deep sigh and closed eyes. Irene, barely dressed, threw her acid gaze at him in his flat so long ago.
> 
> "It happens today, doesn't it?" Sherlock asked. John expected him to sound reserved, quiet, but he sounded almost energetic.
> 
> "Oh God," John breathed out. He raised his misted eyes to the road in front of him and felt his heart stop. "Oh God," he repeated.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second to last chapter, everyone. Enjoy!

The Diogenes Club was a large white building of imperial stature that was a stark difference to the dark brick building of the Holmes Estate, although they were about the same size. When John stepped through the large front doors, he found himself in a hallway instead of a foyer. The doorman showed him through the club, passing half a dozen doors that hid a few offices if the one that was wide open was anything to go by.

At the end of the hall were two doors that led to a kitchen. The smell of lunch being prepared caused John's stomach to clench in hunger. A woman spotted him peeking in and handed him an apple without a word, although she did smile, so John felt a little better about possibly being poisoned. He nodded and smiled to show his thanks, and then he had to hurry to catch up with the doorman, who had left him behind.

On the second floor was a room full of older men sitting in comfy chairs, none of them facing any of the other chairs. The walls were lined with carved wood and bookshelves, with books that actually looked as though they had been removed often and read. Some of the men had newspapers while some stared blankly ahead, and as he watched them John noticed why the whole building seemed odd to him.

It was entirely silent inside.

Aside from the soft clanking of the kitchen as you passed it, there was no noise at all inside the club. Even the doorman hadn't greeted John. He'd just motioned for John to follow and had started walking. As he passed the lounge with the old men, none of them even glanced up. It was as if they were in a trance or something where no outside stimuli could affect them.

Finally, the doorman stopped in front of a door and motioned for John to enter. John's hand barely touched the handle, but it was enough of a movement to signal the doorman to hurry back to his duties. Trying not to let the stillness of the air unnerve him, John stepped inside the room. These walls were only half covered in decorative wood, but the large oak desk and the fancy bookshelves pressed up against the wall were enough to make it just as impressive.

Behind the desk, Mycroft sat and read a letter. When the door shut behind John, Mycroft glanced up at him, closed his eyes, sighed, reopened them, and then set the letter down carefully.

"Odd place," John commented, and his voice seemed far too loud for the place he was in.

"The Diogenes Club," Mycroft allowed, smiling with as much humor as his face could probably handle. "There are many men in London who have no wish for the company of their fellows, yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of such men that I helped start that Diogenes Club."

"So it's a place for grumpy hermits to collect?" John asked, voice dry and unamused.

"Sherlock used to say it contained the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. You see, no member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save for when in a sealed office, such as this one, no talking is allowed within these walls," Mycroft explained, folding his hands in front of him on the table.

"Did he not like it, then?" It sounded like a place full of authority, and John knew how much Sherlock thought of authority.

Mycroft's smile faded a little, but otherwise he only gave a minute shrug. "My brother said he found it held a very soothing atmosphere."

Of course he would. Why would Sherlock Holmes ever pretend to conform to people's thoughts of him?

"Alright then. Out with it. You said it was time," the doctor said and waved at Mycroft.

The older gentleman frowned deeply. "Are you in a hurry to leave, Doctor Watson?"

"I'd be lying if I said I was happy to be here."

"Well I wouldn't want you to lie." They exchanged an electrified stare, both of their mouths dragging down at the corners as though there were nothing in world worth smiling about. It felt like a contest of who could show their displeasure the most. Then Mycroft made a grumbling noise in the back of his throat. "Sherlock left me a note as well, you know."

"The letter?" John asked, and Mycroft nodded. He lifted the paper off his desk anew.

"It's rather short for being a goodbye letter – only a page long – but he was never one for grand speeches... unless he was telling you why you were wrong or proving how clever he was." The older Holmes sat up straighter. "Mostly he's making me promise to complete a favor for him. One of his Baker Street Irregulars brought it to me almost a month after his passing."

"His what?" John asked, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

"His network of the homeless, the drug addicts, the riff raff, and the oddly loyal followers he finds on his cases. I daresay, if you had known him in person while he lived, you could have been considered one." He paused for just a moment, looking like he wanted to add an exception to what he'd just said, but then he shook his head and continued. "My brother's letter requested I promise to do only one thing."

"Make sure I keep talking to him?" John asked.

"No. He made me promise to tell you how he died." Mycroft's face was a stone, blunt and cold like his words. "He told me to let go of the past, but he distinctly ordered me to tell you how and when it happened. I sought you out on my own, for reasons I have already discussed with you."

John let out a huff of air. "So are you going to tell me or not? Because your phone call sounded pretty determined, but now you're just stalling."

The letter fluttered to the desk as Mycroft dropped it with none of his earlier care. He stood up and walked around to John's side of the desk, but then he opted to lean against it instead of standing.

"A year ago," Mycroft began, crossing his arms over his chest. "Sherlock was chin deep in a case... several cases, really, and he swore they were all connected. Knowing his brilliance, I never doubted him. He told me there was one man at the center of them all, and I assigned all my best men to do as Sherlock was and find some evidence to link one man to the scene of every crime."

"Moriarty," John said. Mycroft nodded.

"Turns out he's stayed under the radar for a good reason. The man leaves nothing behind. During his last week, Sherlock showed me that Moriarty, Jim Moriarty, was in every photo of the crime scene crowds, and yet we found nothing on him, not even a strand of hair. And even with his face in every shot, he appears in no government records after he was eighteen. He was impossible to find, but he always found Sherlock." Mycroft ran a hand down his face. "He called me once and promised to confess, to turn himself in, to do something to help the case against him, but only if I answered one specific question."

"Did you?" John asked.

"Of course."

"And what was the question?"

"He wanted to know who it was that Sherlock always spoke to on the phone," Mycroft said, leveling his gaze on John, who lost the breath in his lungs. Moriarty had known? "As was obvious with him and my brother, he had been watching Sherlock closely. It seemed he had been overly curious about who took up so much of Sherlock's concentration. By that point, Sherlock knew Moriarty was attacking those close to him, but I didn't even hesitate before telling him your name."

"You told Moriarty who I was?" John asked, a touch of anger seeping into his tone.

"It was the chance of a lifetime. I tell a psychopath the name of someone who didn't even know my brother existed, and I could effectively capture the country's greatest criminal. One man for a country, Watson," Mycroft said, as though John were a rebel child and not a man who's life had been ruined by that choice. "But, as you can expect, Moriarty backed out on his part of the deal. He hung up before I could even think of objecting."

"You sent him after me," John said, clarifying. "After me? After everything Sherlock told you about us? Did you not believe him?"

"I did not," Mycroft admitted. "Not entirely. I knew you existed, obviously. I did a background check. But asking someone to believe in a time lag is a hard request. Until I officially met you and you confirmed you were still speaking with Sherlock, I was unconvinced. So I told Moriarty who you were, and he vanished into the wind."

"Except he didn't, because he hired Raz to shoot me," John said, his voice low and angry.

"Precisely," Mycroft said, and John got the impression that something should have been clarified with that word, but he hadn't followed Mycroft's train of thought. "Ryan, one of Sherlock's own Irregulars, turned against him."

"Raz," John stressed, "And he was threatened and forced." He barely knew Raz, but he still liked the teenager more than Mycroft. As Lestrade had pointed out, there was just something about Raz that made him feel trustworthy.

"Either way, he killed my brother," Mycroft clipped, almost sneering at John for defending the boy.

"What?" John frowned, confusion pulling at his brow. Raz killed Sherlock? "When-" He froze. Raz killed Sherlock. Raz went to prison for murder. John flashed back to last November, when he was standing in front of the Ask restaurant and a well dressed man had taken off at a sprint down the road.

"Now you understand?" Mycroft asked. "At first I blamed you. The boy had been aiming for you, after all." John winced, a numbness flooding his shoulder. "But Sherlock's letter told me to forgive you, although not in so many words, and after a few months I realized I was the one to blame, really."

"Sherlock was the man," John murmured. It was hard to find a breath.

'I-I knew that guy. He was a nice guy… I never would’ve hurt him,' Raz's pleas echoed in his mind.

He remembered Lestrade, a deep sigh and closed eyes. 'It wasn't your fault. I tried to build it up that it was, but it wasn't.'

"Yes," Mycroft said. "He saved your life at the cost of his own."

Irene, barely dressed, threw her acid gaze at him in his flat so long ago. 'He did everything for you. Gave you everything... Didn't even come to the funeral. Then again, maybe you weren't welcome.'

Gave him everything. He gave John his life. The doctor held his head with one hand. Sherlock was the man in the street that day. The man with the pale eyes and color drained skin as blood pooled around him. He snapped his hand from his head and looked at his watch.

"Do you need to lie down?" Mycroft asked.

"No." John ripped his phone from his pocket. "No, I need to go."  
He didn't even give Mycroft a second thought as he put the phone to his ear and rushed from the office, down the stairs and out of the building. His phone connected when he stepped outside into the sun, and it only rang once before it was picked up.

"John?" Sherlock answered, and John couldn't even bask in the surprise in his voice. He was hurrying down the street, back toward Baker Street, although he knew he couldn't do anything.

"Sherlock, you're dead," John said, his chest pounding at the gravity of finally saying it.

"I know," Sherlock said.

"No, you don't understand. It's all my fault." John's eyes felt hot. "Just... – Where are you right now?"

"The flat," Sherlock said. "And you, I believe, are about to get lunch down the street."

"Don't go outside, Sherlock," John said, voice hard. "You hear me? Stay inside, no matter what."

The other end of the call was so silent under John's panting that he feared he had accidentally hung up on Sherlock somehow. John slowed to a brisk jog and then to a long stride. He didn't even know where he was running to. He couldn't physically stop Sherlock.

"It happens today, doesn't it?" Sherlock asked. John expected him to sound reserved, quiet, but he sounded almost energetic. "This is when you're shoulder is injured."

"Yes, Sherlock, but listen to me. Stop. I need you to stay home. Don't go out!" He just wanted this one thing from Sherlock. He wanted to hear the detective promise him to stay out of it.

"I can't. John, he's going to shoot you. It's already happened. I have to go." Sherlock was moving around in a noisy rush, and John imagined he was pulling on the blue shirt he'd been wearing that day, the black trousers, and the long dark coat. The same damn coat that Irene had given him.

"He's going to miss!" John shouted. "You're going to die!"

"I have to go." Street noise in the background. John stopped walking and pressed his free hand through his hair, his eyes sliding shut.

"No! No, you don't," John said, his voice cracking as he tried to scream through the phone.

"You're living proof, John. I'm already dead. The least I can do is protect you. Stop trying to distract me. I won't leave you to die." Why didn't he understand? Raz was planning on missing. Sherlock didn't need to die!

"Sherlock, wait! Don't do this. Raz isn't going to kill me." John's chest ached and he felt a tear slip over his cheeks. He could see it now, clear as day, the man lying in the street.

Mike was shouting. People were screaming. One of the waitresses had already snapped her mobile to her ear with a call for an ambulance and the police. The man in the street had dark curled hair and high cheekbones. God, it looked just like the photos. How had John never noticed?

'You alright?' John heard himself shouting in his memory and remembered the smile Sherlock had given him. 'Are you alright?!' Eyes slipping shut.

"Listen to me! I have things I need to say to you. In person. Important things! Don't do this," he pleaded.

A woman shouted in the background, and John remembered her being pushed into her friends as Sherlock stumbled onto the sidewalk. The woman is yelling at Sherlock, and John isn't sure he's even being heard over her. He growls in frustration, but the only response his gets is Sherlock arguing with the woman.

Oh God.

"Sherlock, if you care about me – if you love me at all – Stop Walking!" His voice echoed off the buildings around him. There was no one around to be startled, but a car alarm went off one street over.

He could still hear the street on the other end, the woman still yelling faintly, but there was no response from Sherlock.

"Oh God," John breathed out. He raised his misted eyes to the road in front of him and felt his heart stop. "Oh God," he repeated.

"John?" Sherlock's voice was still on the line, and John's chest skipped in a moment of hope before it skipped in fear.

"Moriarty," John said, and the slim man dressed in black smiled mischievously from his position fifty feet away.

Someone grabbed John from behind and he dropped his phone to the pavement. He was being choked! Moriarty walked calmly up to him, and whatever behemoth had hold of him, and chuckled. He looked down at the phone curiously, and then his eyes grew dark and he smashed his foot down on the device. The screen cracked, the keyboard crunched, and pieces of the mobile splintered off under the criminal's heel. The car alarm cut off as though it had never been blaring, and now all John could hear was his own gasps.

"No one around to protect you now, Johnny-boy," Moriarty said. Over the man's shoulder, an old woman and a young man were walking slowly together, and John had a moment of wondering when they had gotten there before Moriarty snapped his fingers to bring his attention back. He did not look pleased at being ignored. "Bag him," he spoke coldly.

A literal bag went down over John's head, but the rope at his neck was released. John had enough time to panic, wondering if Sherlock listened to him, wondering how he'd check now that his phone was gone, had enough time to feel his heart break in desperation before something hit him at just the right angle over his head and he blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Preview, Chapter 22:
> 
> "Why?" He tapped his gun against his head. "Because he's the greatest mind in the world after my own, because this is the great game... because we have to solve the final problem."
> 
> "What is the final problem?" John asked, voice lowered.
> 
> John took a slow, steady breath. He had two possibilities for where he was, and since the ground below him felt very solid and he wasn't moving at all, he narrowed it down to one.
> 
> He was at a pool.
> 
> Moriarty's gaze was up where the lights were coming from. "They won't shoot the hero to kill the villain."
> 
> "Tell me I'm right. You gave me a riddle with no answer."


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a blast, everyone. Thank you so much for reading and for your support.

When he first regained consciousness, John noticed the sound of water lapping gently nearby. Then he noticed the sound of an engine, or a turbine perhaps. The sounds had a slight hollow sound to them. Someone took a few steps, and the clop of their shoes on the hard ground echoed slightly. John took a slow, steady breath. He had two possibilities for where he was, and since the ground below him felt very solid and he wasn't moving at all, he narrowed it down to one.

He was at a pool.

Without opening his eyes, John could tell he wasn't blindfolded. Moriarty didn't care if John saw him or not. John already knew what he looked like. John had already told the police that Moriarty was present at each crime scene. By now the police should have identified him, maybe even found him, and yet he had been there on the street. And John had seen him, clear as day and a foot away, so a blindfold wasn't necessary.

He also knew that his hands were held behind his back. Rope by the feel of it. Not too tight, because he would have already developed a burn from them in his unconscious state, but they were definitely tight enough. Legs too. No gag though, so Moriarty must not be worried about being overheard. There would be no one around within ear shot.

Great mess you got yourself into this time, he scolded himself. So worried about Sherlock when you bloody well should have been worried about yourself.

"Comin around," a gruff man said as a door swung open, and John realized he'd been noticed.

He let out a half-heavy breath and opened his eyes a crack, as though just waking up. He saw the cement and tile floor of a public pool below him and the rope around his ankles, then he raised his eyes up to the thug of a man standing in front of him. John's neck screamed at the new position, and he rolled his head to get out some of the kinks.

"Sleep well?" a familiar voice asked, and Moriarty strolled casually in front of him. "Wouldn't want you to be in any physical pain."

"Well my neck is a bit sore," John admitted, a friendly sass in his voice. "Don't suppose you have a chiropractor on hand?"

Moriarty, for all his crimes, smiled. "No," he said and folded his hands behind his back. "But don't worry, Doctor. It'll be the least of your problems."

"What will be the worst?" John asked, trying to hide the fear he was feeling. It was bubbling up in his stomach like a sour juice in the aftermath of the sass. He'd rushed out of the Diogenes club alone. He'd been on the road alone. He'd been captured alone.

No one knew he was missing.

"The worst will be.... hm," Moriarty paused and put a finger to his lips. "You know what? I'm actually really torn. Help me pick how you're going to die." He clapped his hands together and then twirled a finger in the air. The thug stepped up from behind him with a gun, but Moriarty didn't take it.

"Why would I help... pick my own death?" John asked. He swallowed thickly. The gun was aimed at him, and though the man's finger wasn't on the trigger, that didn't mean he couldn't change that very quickly.

"Because it's more fun that way," Moriarty said as though John had asked an especially dumb question. "Now pick. I could have Henderson shoot you in the head and make it look like a suicide – couldn't take the pressure of Sherlock Holmes or whatever. I could have him drown you in the pool and make it look like an accident – slipped, fell, hit your head, bled out and inhaled too much water. Or I can put you in a taxi and send you home." The small man paused, and John felt a surge of hope. "But just before you reach your destination, the driver has a heart attack, swerving into the path of an oncoming vehicle – maybe a truck. The taxi is hit from the side, crushing you in your seat before you have time to call for help."

"You're demented," John gasps out.

"Well you don't get where I am by being a sweetheart, do you?" Moriarty asked with a laughing grin. "So which is it?"

John took a deep breath and, for a moment, actually debated which he'd prefer. Something made him pause. "Do you ever do any of your own dirty work?" he asked.

The criminal gave a pause and considered John. "No," he said, a slight air of confusion in his voice, as though he couldn't figure out how the conversation had shifted into a boring topic. "Why on Earth would I have lackeys if I did the work myself? Honestly."

"You get to enjoy all the credit and do none of the work," John accused, energized by a sudden rush of adrenaline from his eminent death.

"How dare- Did you-?" Moriarty looked at the thug man beside him and motioned to John before looking at his victim again. "Do you have any idea how much work goes in to coming up with perfect murders and making them look like suicides and accidents? This is my life work!"

"You're a tiny man hiding behind bigger men," John taunted. Why was he doing this? So he could die faster? No. Because maybe, just maybe, if he threw Moriarty off his game, John could have a chance at escape, and even if he died, the crime may be so sudden that evidence will be bound to be left behind to catch this creep. Even if both John and Sherlock had to die because of him, maybe there would be a chance of stopping him.

"No!" Moriarty snatched the gun from his man and held it against John's forehead. "You are the one hiding behind others."

"What are you on about?" John said, his eyes squinting a bit, prepared for the shot that would take his life.

"You have been hiding behind Sherlock's good work, living with that old woman who took care of Sherlock, and hiding inside the walls of your job this whole time. For the last several months- months! – you've been hiding behind Sherlock's defenses! And you think you're innocent!"

"What defenses? I haven't done anything!" John shouted. Moriarty hit him upside the head with the gun.

"The Baker Street Irregulars," Moriarty sneered, spitting out the name.

'His network of the homeless, the drug addicts, the riff raff, and the oddly loyal followers he finds on his cases,' John heard Mycroft explain from earlier.

"They've been circling you since you moved into Baker Street, calling attention to spies, endangering my men, foiling traps. Do you understand how infuriating that is?" Moriarty asked. "But today, today was good. Poor little John Watson rushed down the street, all alone, with no addicts in sight, no one knows why or how. But he ran right into my hands."

'Don't be surprised to find me guarding you... in my own way.' Sherlock's recording rang through his head. Sherlock really had been protecting him... all this time.

"Are you awake, Doctor? I didn't accidentally kill you already, did I?" Moriarty asked, and John turned his head away from the handgun. "Good." He took a deep breath and backed up from John. He dusted his suits lapels off and smiled again. "Now you know why you even came up on my radar, correct?"

"Mycroft tol-"

"WRONG!" Moriarty shouted. "You're here because of Sherlock Holmes. If you had stayed away from him, you wouldn't be a target, but you had to be one of the closest people to him, and that makes you a target for me."

"Why? Why do you hate Sherlock?" John asked. Moriarty stood straighter, his left eyebrow lifting. He looked contemplative, as though he'd never been asked this question before.

"Why?" He tapped his gun against his head. "Because he's the greatest mind in the world after my own, because this is the great game... because we have to solve the final problem."

"What is the final problem?" John asked, voice lowered. Moriarty shrugged. Then he frowned, his entire expression deadly.

"Who is the greater mind?" he asked. "Is it the devil or the angel? I set the game and the pieces. He solves the cases. But he keeps losing people, because he isn't focusing and the time limit slips by. You're the only one – the only one he seems to always be around. Never leaves you alone. I know because you'd already be dead if I'd ever had the chance."

"Very reassuring," John said.

"It should be." Moriarty's expression was similar to Irene, someone who longed for Sherlock's love and attention and was jealous and angry that John had it when they didn't, and they'd worked so hard for it. "Do you know how to solve the final problem?"

"Kill me?" John guessed, the lump in his throat threatening to choke him, and still he sounded almost normal. He pulled at his hands gently, but they refused to give at all.

"What? Oh no, no," Moriarty assured, shaking his head and smiling. A funny laugh even came through his throat. Then he held up the gun and aimed it at John, his expression one of homicidal glee. "That's only the first step." He paused, his eyes looking up in thought. "Well, more like the tenth step, but it's all the same really. I kill all the people he's ever cared about and then-"

"You kill Sherlock," John finished and let out a huff of air. He felt squished, like someone was laying on him even though he was in a chair. Moriarty had already killed Sherlock, so what did it matter anymore?

"Correct. I kill Sherlock Holmes. You're the largest obstacle in that plan. Everyone else would merely forget Sherlock if he died, but you actively meddle in his life. You would continue to remind people of him, and I can't have that happening." Moriarty took a deep breath and let it out as a quick sigh. "After you I just have to finish off his silly Irregulars... and maybe take out the police inspector, and then everyone who Sherlock cares about will be gone."

The irregulars? Moriarty was going to take out random drug addicts and street urchins? Was he going to kill Raz too? John knit his eyebrows together. That boy with the old woman on the street before John had been knocked out – that had looked a lot like Raz. But Raz was in prison. It was impossible. It must have been John's imagination, but what difference did that make?

That kid could be an Irregular. Hell, the old woman could've been. Raz seemed to be one. They'd all be murdered by this madman. They were innocent. They were people, fallen on hard times by choice or accident, who helped a genius solve crimes and put bad men behind bars or in morgues. And the worst man of all was going to kill them for it.

"You'll never win," John said as soon as the response came into his head. Moriarty's grin dropped entirely, and John clenched his fists. He was sealing his fate. "Even if you kill all of us, you'll be caught or killed. Sherlock's work will help someone defeat you. No matter how many people you kill, you're still the loser, Moriarty. Because it takes no skill to win when you know all the rules, but it takes a genius to succeed when he never knew the rules to begin with... and Sherlock has matched you countless times. You lose."

Never had John seen so much rage on one face. It sent ice into his gut, down his legs, through his chest. He would never make it out of this alive.

"I will skin you alive," Moriarty said, his voice shaking from emotion. "I will make a chair out of you."

"Not if I make a rug out of you first," a new voice called monotonously from somewhere hidden on the sidelines.

John closed his eyes and held his breath. Was it possible to die without feeling the pain of a bullet? It was fairly common for those near death to hallucinate but-

"Speak of the devil and he appears," Moriarty sneered, his demeanor unaffected by the new addition. "Or I suppose I did just say you aren't a devil."

"Drop the gun, Moriarty," Sherlock said, stepping from behind a plastic wall, a gun held high in his strong hand. "And let him go."

"Just like a Holmes to give orders first and do anything later, but I refuse. You heard my speech. This is a war between us – the two greatest men in history." Moriarty shrugged and raised his free hand to thump off the side of his temple. "And you know... when two celestial bodies collide and whatnot.... Bound to be a couple casualties."

"Not anymore." Sherlock put both hands on his gun to steady his hand. He was wearing that damn good purple shirt with his tailored suit and looked, for all purposes, to be going on a date instead of facing down a murderer. "This isn't a game. And if it were, you've lost."

"How do you figure?" Moriarty asked.

"Because I brought back-up." Sherlock's lip tugged up in a smirk as a dozen red gun scopes aimed themselves at Moriarty. John let out a huff of relief when Moriarty slid his eyes shut and removed his finger from the trigger. He raised his hands up in surrender, eyes still closed, and didn't move. "Gun," Sherlock reminded. Moriarty dropped it with a clatter.

Sherlock lowered his weapon too and hurried over to John. He moved fluidly, his face a mask of concentration, and knelt behind John to undo his bindings.

"Are you alright?" he asked. John could only let out an exasperated giggle, and Sherlock moved to undo his ankles. "Are you alright?" the detective asked more harshly. It sounded just like the day they met, when John had no idea who this bleeding, dying man was.

"I-I'm fine," John said, although his legs felt unstable when he stood up. Sherlock helped him stand, and they just smiled at each other for a minute before someone shouted, a shot echoed off the tile, and Sherlock was tackled into the pool.

"Sherlock!" John gasped.

Moriarty was in the pool on top of Sherlock, using his whole body to hold the slender man under water. There was a fight of limbs, water splashing, and Sherlock made his way to the surface. He gasped in air, and Moriarty slammed his knuckles into the side of his face. Sherlock went down again, slipping beneath the surface. The red dots of the guns hovered around helplessly, unable to safely take a shot. John shook his head.

He flung himself into the pool and onto Moriarty. He wrapped his arms around the stunned man's neck and pulled back, peeling Moriarty forcefully off Sherlock. Moriarty kicked out at Sherlock and clawed at the arms choking him. Just when Sherlock got his legs under him and broke the surface again, Moriarty nailed John in the corner of the eye with his elbow, weakening the doctor's grip enough to allow escape.

John stumbled awkwardly in the water until he caught the edge of the pool. When he looked back, Moriarty had his arms around Sherlock, using him as a human shield. Sherlock's arms were raised in surrender, but his eyes were on John and his face was deadly calm.

Moriarty's gaze was up where the lights were coming from. "Brought your well trained puppies, the men of the yard, to save you?" he asked, voice conversationally low. "But they won't shoot the hero to kill the villain."

Sherlock's eyes flickered away from John and then back. John was watching those eyes, his heart hammering loudly, his adrenaline pumping, his worry mounting, and suddenly he thought he understood. He turned his head to the edge of the pool, slowly so as not to draw attention, and saw what Sherlock was motioning toward.

Sherlock's gun was within arm's reach, dropped before the fight. John looked back at Sherlock, staring into those bright, serious eyes, and he asked a question without using words. Sherlock's chin lowered a fraction and raised back up. Acceptance. Approval. John sucked his mouth shut and nodded back, his eyes hardening. There was only one option. Moriarty had to be stopped.

In the time of a blink, Sherlock threw his head back, catching Moriarty in the nose and causing the man's hold to weaken. In the same moment, John snatched up the gun and spun it around on the two other men. Sherlock pulled away from Moriarty, but the slippery man grabbed for him again almost as quickly. John took a steady breath and felt his heart stop when he pulled the trigger.

As the gunshot echoed, Sherlock dropped into the water, Moriarty on top of him. Blood was leaking out to mix with the water around the slumped bodies. John's hands started to shake and he tossed the gun away.

"Sh-Sherlock?" he panted, chest still heaving with anxiety.

Moriarty's body rolled off to float face up in the water, a gunshot in his temple. Then Sherlock stood up, soaking wet and breathing deep. He nodded at John again and they silently dragged themselves from the pool while officers swarmed the area. The thug from earlier and the two others who had helped grab John on the street were found, cuffed, and herded together.

Lestrade was there and he smiled at them both. "Give me a heart attack, why don't you?" he gasped. "I thought he was going to shoot you both. Good work, the pair of you."

The inspector clapped them both on the back and started rambling about how good of a team Sherlock and John had been, how Sherlock had found John with his contacts and alerted authorities, about how all of this was apparently some great plan between John and Sherlock, but John couldn't begin to understand what had happened. Lestrade wasn't stunned to see Sherlock at all. He didn't seem overly happy or relieved either. You'd think Sherlock had never been dead at all.

"Thank you, Inspector," Sherlock was saying, and he didn't seem to find speaking with Lestrade to be odd either. "Sorry about not bringing him in alive."

"We can deal with that later. You shouldn't have anything to worry about – self-defense and all. I'll take care of it." Lestrade was looking at John now, but John still couldn't believe his eyes. "You alright, Doctor Watson?"

"What?" John shook himself. "What? Yeah. I'm fine. Not a scratch." He touched his temple even as he said it, knowing he would bruise.

"Just a bruise," Lestrade said. "That'll be in your favor, probably... So I know you two haven't spoken in awhile, and John looks like he's about to burst. I'll take the men back to the yard. Join us when you're ready, alright?" He took two steps back and stopped, hands up. "Before the day's end." And he gave Sherlock a look that told John Sherlock must have a habit of keeping his own schedule.

There were men taking photographs of the pool, of the body and the blood. John was no policeman, but this could take awhile. How were they meant to have a private conversation? Just then, he found his arm snatched up in a firm grasp, and he was led from the room. They stepped out through the same door Sherlock must have come in through, hidden behind a long plastic wall. It was a locker room with tile around showers and changing rooms but then thin carpet around the actual lockers, muffling the echoes of the room.

Once the sounds of shuffling feet and complaining men had faded away, John was released. The lanky detective was looking him over, water clinging to his bangs and dripping from his clothes. His breathing was heavy, but so was John's even though he hadn't done much during the fight. He still couldn't believe it. Sherlock was alive, standing there in front of him. How? How was he- Why did it even matter? He was here.

"Sherlock?" he asked and swallowed heavily, trying to regain control over his flimsy vocal chords.

"There is no answer," Sherlock said and pushed his bangs out of his face. God, he looked even better. Maybe John was dead.

"Come again?" John took a deep breath.

Sherlock stepped closer to him, as though he would tell John a secret. "Two heads, two hearts, eight limbs, and is colored red and blue. There is no answer." He stopped a foot from John, which made it increasingly difficult to breathe. "Tell me I'm right. You gave me a riddle with no answer."

The bright eyes, the dark hair, the pale face, the deep voice. John was going to pass out. He nodded slowly. "There's no answer. It was the only way I could guarantee you'd never figure it out."

"And yet I did. Took me a long time, but it was the only logical solution. Had I died that day, I would never have known... and that would have killed me," Sherlock said. He ran his thumb across John's forehead, catching water before it got to his eyes. "Brilliant game, John. You are... something. I haven't decided what yet."

John let out a pant and then a gasp, his eyes being forcefully pulled to Sherlock's lips. "You'll figure it out."

"Well," Sherlock said, and his lips tugged up on the right. "Can I suggest a different game of sorts for the time being?"

He leaned slowly forward, and John nodded slowly, then rapidly. Sherlock smiled more, a deep chuckle coming from his throat, and then they were kissing for the second time ever, almost two years later. John grabbed Sherlock, feeling his arms, his shoulders, his back. Feeling him to prove that he was solid, here,... alive. 

"You're alive," John huffed out when Sherlock pulled back to breathe deeply.

Sherlock made a grunted approval of a noise. "I heard you on the phone. I knew you were in trouble, and I couldn't very well die knowing you could be following me there. I don't know how it happened the first time, but suddenly all your comments about changing the past came to me, and I knew I had to live. So I changed it." 

"But nothing changed. Moriarty still came after me." A drop of water hit John's nose when it fell from Sherlock's hair. He loved it and gripped Sherlock's silky shirt cover arm as he moved closer for the chance of it happening again.

"Moriarty is a psychopath," Sherlock answered, voice dangerously low. "You still started working on the case. I knew your timeline and worked around it so we'd never meet and your time would progress smoothly, but my death or life changed nothing for Moriarty."

"My time?" John asked, and he felt a bubble of betrayal in his gut. "Why did you mind my time? You could have talked to me, could have let me know you were alive! I went through hell with grief over you!" He released Sherlock's arms and pulled away from him as though Sherlock had physically shocked him.

"Things would be different if I'd interfered," Sherlock said. He didn't follow John's steps, didn't reach out for him. He just watched while John took more steps away and ran his hands through his hair.

"What would be different?" he asked. "What could possibly have gone wrong if you'd just come and talked to me?"

"You wouldn't love me."

Sherlock's voice was so unemotional, so matter-of-fact, and his face was open, relaxed, but revealed no feelings. He might as well have been commenting on the God damned weather. He watched John absorb the answer like he may watch a child's movie, with mild interest.

"Wouldn't-," John lost his voice and his chest heaved once. He dropped his hands to his side. "Wouldn't love you?"

For the first time, Sherlock seemed to doubt. His lips became thinner, his forehead ever so slightly creased. "Was I wrong? I'm sorry. I thought-"

"Shut up, Sherlock," John ordered, sighing and rubbed his face. "Why wouldn't I love you if you talked to me?"

"Well obviously you'd have thought my phone calls were lies. I wouldn't be some mysterious past caller. I'd be the bloke downstairs who set the flat on fire. I left my casework on Moriarty, traveled, did freelance work elsewhere all so you'd have at least a similar timeline... Although by your reactions, I'm assuming nothing changed for you." Sherlock paused, considering this. "You still thought I'd died."

"Bloody right I did," John said with a grunt. "Your brother told me the day after Christmas."

"My brother has never met you," Sherlock amended, and a small smile played with his lips at John's confused sound of a response. The doctor squinted at Sherlock a bit, trying to remember. The more he tried, the foggier his memories of Mycroft became. He still remembered the older Holmes, but the specifics of conversation scampered from his questioning mind. He tried again, this time thinking about the day Sherlock died... and found that too was cloudy.

"But-," John began and then stopped himself, unsure of how to continue. He remembered the bullet in his shoulder, the lamp sparking as his phone crashed into it, the sight of Moriarty running down the street and Raz's panicked apologies, but he could not clearly remember the sight of Sherlock on the ground. He knew Sherlock had died, had slipped away before his very eyes, but the haunting image would not come from the recesses of his memory.

"Time has shifted, my dear John. I kept him out of your life for your own sanity.. Although I guess my efforts were in vain. You still remember the old timeline."

"I'm not following." John took a deep breath. Timelines. Sherlock was alive in this one, but he'd actually been dead before? It wasn't all some trick? Mycroft didn't know him? But before they've spoken at least once a month. Lestrade, Molly, Irene, Raz – would any of them know him now? What was different in this timeline? Why did John still remember the old one?

"As far as I can tell, the timelines are nearly identical. I still sent you on the scavenger hunt at Valentine's Day. My messages still made it into your hands. The only difference would be my living instead of dying. By my guess, the only reason you still recall any of my death is because you and I were at the center of the temporal shift." Sherlock folded his hands behind his back. "Are you angry with me?"

"What?" John tilted his head to the side and then straightened up again. "What? No. Of course not. You're alive. It's a miracle! I'm just wondering about the messages."

"What about them?" Sherlock asked.

"Well I never got the last one," John explained. "Recording... one."

Was it possible for Sherlock to look embarrassed and totally calm at the same time? "I mailed that one. It should have arrived before recording 8, where you learned I knew of my fate. Honestly, I thought that was the reason you quit speaking to me. I should've known the post would be unreliable."

"I stopped calling you because you kept talking about death as an absolute, and I couldn't handle the stress. Idiot." John shook his head and took a step closer to Sherlock. "What was so bad in the last message?"

The pale man gave a noncommittal shrug. "It was the recording explaining my feelings for you. Even so long ago, I knew where this relationship was headed. Irene was furious. I'd never taken an interest in anyone, male or female, but something about you sparked something within me." He took a shallow breath. "Recording one was about my affections for you."

Now it was John's turn for shallow breathing. His chest couldn't concentrate long enough for deep breaths. Sherlock's affections? Sherlock... had assumed, correctly, that John loved him. Of course that had to mean – "Oh sod it," he said and closed the distance between them once more.

He grabbed Sherlock by his shoulders and leaned in for a kiss. Sherlock's hands, while strong, were placed tentatively on John's waist as the detective leaned down and accepted the kiss. It was only one - one simple, solid kiss, and then John pulled Sherlock closer and just hugged him.

Sherlock's arms around him were long, firm, and warm. Every reminder that Sherlock was here and alive made John's heart speed up, and he could only hold on tighter, burying his head into whatever part of that slim torso was nearest.

"I missed you," Sherlock admitted quietly in his deep voice.

"Idiot," John scolded. "God, I missed you too."


	23. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a really good friend (who's writing a fanfic of this fanfic, which will be in a series with this story eventually) who helped me basically decide what went into this epilogue and then pestered me to write it until I had ended up telling so many reviewers 'it might happen' that I just started saying 'it will happen' and then... well here it is.

John sighed as he pulled his hand back from the top shelf of books. It was packed from one side to the other with no wiggle room. All three bookshelves were like that, from the top shelves to the bottom ones. There was no room left.

"Why the sigh, John?" Sherlock asked, setting a box in the middle of the room by its brothers. The whole of 221B's main sitting room was filled with half-closed boxes like the new addition.

"We don't have enough room for all the books," John said, stepping down from the short ladder and staring down the bookcase, two books in hand. "I don't know what I was thinking bring all this stuff. I should have told Harry to stuff it.. and you along with her. I didn't need to buy a whole new wardrobe or half the stuff you two gave me. Where am I going to put it all?"

He stopped his complaining when Sherlock's arms found their way around his shoulders. When the detective spoke, John could feel his breath on his cheek. "Calm down. The flat was built for two. Things will fit." He pulled back and nudged a box with his toe. "Although I don't know why you need a black and white photo of each season."

"I like them. So you'll learn to live with it." John picked the box up and walked over to a wall, where he planned to hang said framed pictures. "Did you manage to fit all of my clothes into the closet?"

"You say that like you brought a shopping mall. Yes. There was more than enough room." Sherlock scoffed and went into the kitchen to find the coffee pot under a mass of half-washed dishes and stacked newsprint.

"After I hang these, we should clean the kitchen... and maybe this room as well," John said, glancing around. Before Sherlock could ask a stupid question, John continued. "Otherwise there will be no hope of me ever squeezing my life in here with yours."

The kitchen was silent for a few moments, except for the slight clanging noise of Sherlock moving things around. John heard the stove come on and knew Sherlock was making tea instead of coffee. Then Sherlock appeared back in the room and, surprisingly, started picking things off the table and moving them to shelves and baskets around the room.

"Thanks," John said, not sure if he'd upset the genius. Sherlock had yet to say anything or even look at him. Even to this, Sherlock only grunted in acknowledgement. While Sherlock cleaned, John watched. He still did this from time to time, even now – almost a month later.

Sometimes he would close his eyes and just listen to Sherlock talk and move about, imagining they were still only on the phone. In a way, it helped him solidify the idea that this was really Sherlock and not just his imagination. And then John would open his eyes and smile while watching his genius rant about something or another. They were still getting used to each other in person, but John was also getting used to Sherlock existing at all.

Silently, they hung the four photos and cleared off the table and couch. It took a moment, but John eventually noticed that he was the only one making noise. His heart sped up despite all the logic in him. He turned around slowly, part of him expecting to have been left alone or to have been alone from the start, but he found Sherlock right where he'd left him. The dark haired man was just watching John, a curious look on his face.

When their eyes met, Sherlock didn't even try to pretend that he hadn't been staring.

"Something wrong?" John asked.

Sherlock shrugged one shoulder. "Not at all. I was just reminding myself that we're speaking in person." He turned and set down the spotless ashtray he'd been holding.

That did it. John couldn't help but smile. Sherlock wasn't use to it either. The detective shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted his feet as he searched with his eyes for what to move into place next. John walked in front of him and didn't speak until Sherlock was paying attention to only him.

"I'm still getting used to it too," he admitted. "It's weird sometimes – you being here in person, alive – but I just remind myself that I prefer this to how it used to be."

"Yes. Me too," Sherlock said, and John laughed, because that couldn't be anything but a joke. There had been no 'used to be' for Sherlock. A pleased little grin appeared on Sherlock lips during John's giggles, and John smacked him lightly in the arm for his successful attempt at humor.

Once the laughter had subsided, John took a deep breath and sighed. "Look. We both just have to realize that neither of us is going anywhere... and we should probably not try to piss off psycho killers anymore. We don't have time travel on our side anymore."

"I never imagined I'd live in a world where that sentence was logical," Sherlock said, and it almost sounded like he was complaining.

"Well you do, so suck it up and enjoy it."

"Oh, I do." And there was something about the way he said it that made John shiver. It wasn't sexy or seductive, but Sherlock's voice had enough of that when he was just bored. Add in the slight amount of amazement and intrigue that had attached themselves to those three words, and it was like candy for John's heart.

"You almost sounded like a serial killer," he lied. Well, maybe it wasn't a total lie. Sherlock would make a splendid villain with just his voice... and with those eyes. Imagining Sherlock, angry and vindictive and murderous was terrifying, but also a bit kinky. Damn. There was no safe zone here.

"Well if I were to become a killer, I'd kill other killers," Sherlock said.

"Okay, Dexter."

"Who?" Sherlock's brow knit in confusion.

"Never mind." John smiled. "Just help me kill the clutter and then we'll discuss you future job options, okay?"

He moved away from Sherlock, toward the disaster of a kitchen, and felt the backs of Sherlock's fingers drag down his arm as he passed. The shiver that ran through him was entirely internal, but his next move wasn't. He turned and hugged Sherlock without warning, catching the other off guard.

"Thanks for letting me move in," he said.

"Any other course of action would not have made sense," Sherlock said. "I want you around, and you want me around. Plus, you're wasting money by living on the floor above me."

"Right." John laughed and pulled away. Before he went for the kitchen again, he diverted to the open front door through which Mrs. Hudson could be heard playing old radio while she made tea.

John hung up his two coats on the rack by the door and then stood back to admire the ensemble. Sherlock's long coat hung there beside his own, the same one that Irene Adler had given him, although the lighter was no longer in the pocket. John looked at Sherlock, ragged white sleeping shirt and polka dots pajama bottoms under a long, silky blue night robe. Hard to believe right now that Sherlock usually dressed like a gentleman.

When his eyes landed back on the coat, a thought occurred to John. "Sherlock," he said, catching the other's attention, even if it didn't appear Sherlock was listening at all. "About recording one.... what did it say exactly?"

"I've told you. It told you I cared for you," Sherlock said, stacking a used-to-be-wild tower of CDs on the bookshelf.

"No. I mean, what did it say specifically. The message, I mean." The damn post had never delivered the last disc, and Sherlock kept suggesting that Mycroft had somehow nicked it from them in transit.

"I love you." The words hung in the air between them, and they just looked at each other. Then John pursed his lips.

"Was that it?" he asked, slightly let down.

"Yes," Sherlock said, his forehead knitting in confusion. "Should it have said more?"

"Well, confessing your feelings to someone does usually take more than that, yeah. I expected a grand explanation of how or why, actually, considering it was coming from you," John said, walking over.

"That was recording two through eight." Sherlock said it so bluntly that John didn't know if he should smile or sigh. In the end, he did both. "Did I do it wrong?"

"No. No," John said, shaking his head and turning to look through a box for anything else that needed to be hung up. "It was a dumb question. You did it perfectly."


End file.
